The Miracle Pad by Mike Giles

A while ago I came across the Miracle Pad that was put out by Mike Giles. I remember being a teenager when this came out. I think in the late 1990’s this was something like $60 or $75, which was a lot of money for a close up pad!

This is a fancy close up pad, and it will facilitate a production of four half dollars and a jumbo coin.

The Miracle Pad by Mike Giles

I’m playing with it and the routine that I came up with is a matrix, that ends with a production of four coins and the jumbo coin. My routine isn’t quite at straight forward as you’d expect it to be with this prop. I had to add in an additional think to make it happen.

I never really intended to use the Miracle Pad as a gimmick. I put a table base on it and it’s my close up magic table that I use with projection. Since I had it with me on the ship I’m performing on, I got to playing with it.

Honestly I don’t think I’ll ever use it as a gimmicked pad in my shows, but it’s fun to play with!

-Louie

Moving Dots…

A while ago I realized that three of magic tricks I’ve developed in the last year is basically the same plot, just with different props. Three things disappear one at a time and reappear grouped together.

I’m trying to add some texture to the show. One of the things I picked up is The Matrix Pad Reloaded. While the name implies that three things would disappear and reappear in one spot like a traditional coin matrix, it’s not exactly that. It’s a moving ink effect, so not really a teleportion, or vanish and reappearance, it’s closer to an animation.

Here’s the demo of the trick:

For a virtual family show I think I could add some fun and make it more interactive. I started by adding different colored pens, so each dot is a different color. While less practical for an in person show, this change is a simple alteration of the gimmick. Now I can have three people each pick a color and I have three people involved in the trick. Then I decided we can play a bit and they will pick a mode of transportation and that’s how the dots will move.

Here’s the test run of it I did at the local magic club:

While it’s not perfect, I think that there’s something there.