How to Make a Jumping Toothpick

You can make a toothpick jump practically out of your hand as if by magic. Do this trick for your friends or co-workers to liven up any mood, and leave them wondering how you did it.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Two round wooden toothpicks

1. Tell your audience that you can make a toothpick jump in your hand.

2. Hold a round, wooden toothpick in your right hand firmly at the tip on one end between your thumb and index finger so that it is horizontal in front of you.

3. Make sure that the toothpick is up against the fingernail of your middle finger in your hand.

4. Hold another round, wooden toothpick in your left hand.

5. Place your left hand underneath the horizontal toothpick you are holding in your right hand while laying the toothpick in your left hand vertically in the palm of your left hand just over the other toothpick so that the toothpicks are perpendicular.

6. Rub the fingernail of your middle finger lightly over the horizontal toothpick in your right hand to cause a very slight vibration, which will cause the vertical toothpick to move when it lays on top of the horizontal one.

7. Watch as the vertical toothpick in your right hand leaps off the other toothpick as if by magic.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure that the rubbing motion of your fingernail against the toothpick is very slight so that your audience does not realize how you are making the toothpick jump.