Regeneration: old, new and future

This is an amazing fix-tip performance by Gustavo Castro at the Mexican Winter Games.

David Buhrmester posted a video doing some regeneration variations, including "Apogee" and I posted another regen trick, "Drum Rolls," on the tricks section.

The current "Guinness World Record" for spin duration of a top was made with a finger top (LSX) regenerated by manipulating the surface where it spun. It seems that because the top was "not touched" it was within their rules. Lately, I have been trying this type of regeneration with other tops and have succeeded with several, including a vintage pegtop and the Spintastics' Hollow Point (video).

Catherine Sampietro is leading a wonderful "spintop program" at the primary school The Academy, of Berkeley, California. See the action in these two youtube videos 1 & 2. Some of these kids can regenerate and have a huge potential in the sport..

French musician Didier Malherbe, of the Hadouk trio, uses tops spinning on a drum to make music. You can find his latest album Utopies here, or listen to Toupie Tambour here.

I found a wonderfully detailed article on a spinning top factory that was the biggest one in the world in the 1930's. I posted scans of the pages: read them by clicking on the Yankee magazine in the Papyrus section.

I believe this top may be a prototype of the first top ever patented in the US: patent number 11,187 of June 27, 1854, by W.E. Woodbridge of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. I'll have more about this in a future section on spinning top patents.

Eerie video "On the Edge" by Argentinean artist Miguel A. Ríos.

The original photograph of a kid spinning at top on the Titanic can be acquired from Father Browne's archives.

This is the latest kinetic trophy made by Mark Hayward for his ultimate battle top contests. This one took place at Madfest 08: worth fighting for!

Watch this video of Hans Jochen Schell doing the classical Japanese sword trick.

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tops from ta0

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