Goat Toy Day 12
5Here’s something simple, silly, and moderately entertaining. It’s your basic top, with a snake.
The trick is the tip of the top is magnetic, so when it touches the side of the snake, the snake starts moving.
There are a lot of variants: different top materials and types; some with one snake, some with two, some with a snake and something else. In my opinion, the straighter snakes give a better effect than the curvier snakes. The curvy snakes move side to side more, but seem to move a lot slower.
The Grand Illusions design looks interesting, but I haven’t found a US source for it.
Of course tops in general can be a bottomless hole.
Dense tungsten for mass, for a long spin.
Gem tips for low friction, for a long spin.
https://darksucks.com/collections/lamda-spin-tops/products/lambda-top-solid-brass
Tungsten tips, guess why?
https://www.jllawsonco.com/collections/tops-games
And that’s not even going into magnetic, electronic, and levitating tops!
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Possibly relevant.
While searching for pictures, I found some interesting toy stores too.
Tin Toy Arcade
https://www.tintoyarcade.com/bibo-magic-top-with-slithering-snakes.html
Retro Planet
https://www.retroplanet.com/PROD/57217.html
Grand Illusions
https://www.grand-illusions.com/magnetic-top-c2x21139982
Neat! Does the tungsten tip provide extra stability to a spinning top?
/giphy inception top
@eonfifty The idea with all of the bearing tipped tops is the sphere provides a minimal contact point, for the lowest possible friction.
And the gems or other hard materials give a smooth, hard, long wearing surfacce.
Reminds me – think I need to find some Wizzzers for the grandkids.
@walarney Whizzers were great, I’d forgotten about them. I had a wedge shaped one. It looks like they’re back too. $8-10 on Amazon and other places.
https://www.amazon.com/Wizzzer-420-Wiz-z-zer-Original-Collectable/dp/B06XH15DJG/
@walarney @blaineg I remember dressing mine up with stick-on stars and moons that were included.
This was the one!
Oh yea, the car! Spin Buggies.
@blaineg Not sure if I remember those, but they remind me of the SSP cars. The smash up derby version had a mechanism to pop the doors off (but probably wasn’t need when we launched them into the brick fireplace).