![]() ![]() Its debut at a New York toy fair made it wildly popular, but the fish could not produce eggs fast enough, so the idea was dropped. Melin turned this into the Instant Fish product, an aquarium kit that consisted of some of the fish eggs and some mud in which to hatch them. When the rains came, the eggs hatched and fish emerged overnight. While camping, he discovered a species of fish that laid eggs in the mud during Africa's dry season. One such product came as a result of Melin's safari to Africa in the early 1960s. Many products, of course, were not successful. In 1962, they sold a limbo dance kit to take advantage of that fad, and in 1975 when the movie Jaws was released, they sold plastic shark teeth. In the 1960s, Wham-O came out with a US$119 do-it-yourself bomb shelter cover. Other products tried to take advantage of existing national trends. The original and amazing Magic Pens by Wham-O that change and erase color like magic Transform regular drawings into magical works of art. The company sold some 20 million of these during the 1960s, and the NFL named the Super Bowl games after it. It was made of a relatively hard elastomer Polybutadiene alloy dubbed Zectron, exhibiting a remarkable 0.92 coefficient of restitution when bounced on hard surfaces. In the early 1960s, Wham-O created the Super Ball. He sold the design to Wham-O in 1957 and the design was modified, the product renamed Frisbee and sales took off in 1959. In 1955 Fred Morrison began marketing a plastic flying disc which he called the "Pluto Platter". Shortly after, they got lucky again with the Frisbee. By the end of 1959, after US$45 million in profits, the fad slowly was dying out. Twenty-five million were sold in less than four months, and in two years sales reached more than 100 million units. Knerr and Melin had created the biggest fad to date. ![]() The new Hula Hoop was born (the name "hula hoop" has been used since the 18th century). ![]() Swipe to see another astonishing property of this top described in a previous post.In 1957, Wham-O, still a fledgling company, took the idea of Australian bamboo "exercise hoops" and manufactured them with Marlex. Home to the Frisbee, Hula-Hoop, Hacky Sack, Slip 'n Slide, Super Ball, Paddle Ball, Trac Ball, Frisbee Golf, Aqua Force, BZ, Morey, Churchill Fins and much more. Balanced such that the spin point was placed at its center of mass, this unique top was used by Maxwell to experimentally test many theories about how the Earth and planets wobble as they spin. After the top gets a flick from my hand note that one can see a circle of evenly changing color- the angular momentum vector points outward through the center of that circle. The four color disk allowed Maxwell to see and study the direction of the angular momentum vector when a spinning object is subjected to a jolt/impact. Maxwell’s Dynamical Top: A 1/2 scale precision replica of the famous “Dynamical Top” created and demonstrated by the great physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1857. This beautiful historical replica is now available from machinist and creator Jim Peever and as far as I know the only other replicas of this device where made in the 1880’s! The key to this design is to make the contact point/tip of the top at its own center of mass, then any frictional force in contact with the stem will produce a torque about the contact point at a right angle to the direction of friction that creates the stabilizing force (students of physics may recognize application of the right hand rule here). WHAM-O Giant Magic Window Sand Art 31 inch Executive Issue Revolving Wall Mount. When this brass bell shaped top is spinning an interesting stability can occur- push on the pointed stem and the top will push back, forcing the stem against that object, and friction will cause the stem to roll along and trace the edge of the object. Maxwell’s Dynamical Top: one of my favorite demonstrations of the strange properties of rotating bodies- shown here with a 1/2 scale but exacting replica of the famous “Dynamical Top” created and demonstrated by the great physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1857. Get this accurate and beautiful 1/2 scale replica here:įrom Machined Marvels: BUY NOW: Maxwell's Dynamical Top ![]()
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