Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ta0]

As we are talking about finger tops, I found these that look really nice (I ordered but have not received them yet):





Each of the two groups of 3 tops is $5 and are at LEAFpdx: http://leafpdx.bigcartel.com/
If you go there, check their non-circular gears: pretty crazy stuff.

[silvertop]

Cool stem design on those paperboard spinners, but from years of experience they will be hard to spin.  The basic tendency is to hold them with your fingers
 on the  flat side which basically requires all the spin to be in the wrist, but they will spin best if you put your fingers on the "edges" which allows the usual
finger snap.

[ta0]

Cool stem design on those paperboard spinners, but from years of experience they will be hard to spin.

I got them today. Yes, the way they made the stems from three pieces of flat cardboard is ingenious: two slanted "arrows" meet below the top to form the tip, and their upper parts are kept separated by another wedge piece. 

The basic tendency is to hold them with your fingers on the  flat side which basically requires all the spin to be in the wrist, but they will spin best if you put your fingers on the "edges" which allows the usual finger snap.

I think the fingers of an adult are too big to hold the flat wedge comfortably, so adults will naturally hold it the correct way. But when I asked Pablo to spin it, he did hold it by the flat side using his thin fingers.

Wow! I just realized that I spun your Lucky Penny Top the wrong way all these years!!!!  Thanks for the hint, Don! 
(I admit it does say: "Grasp rim of coin to spin", but who reads the instructions to spin a finger top?

[silvertop]

Yep -- I noticed over the years that pretty much everyone grabbed the coin top by the flat side of the coin, making the spin much less effective, and I'm sure hurting sales since it just does not spin as well that way.  But then again, I've made a career out of making things that always require some sort of instructions rather than being intuitively obvious to the general public.  I'm currently working on a "jack-in-the-box" design that a lot of people just can't seem to figure out.  See customized-version-of-surprise-box to see it - including a video.  People just didn't take the clue of one arrow in the lever.  This one has two arrows to try and correct that - same problem.  The latest iteration has an arrow shaped end on the lever, and the word PUSH.  We'll see what happens with that???  My wife hates it when I hand her a new design and just watch her to see what she does with it.  She is really a good test subject though because she is remarkably un-mechanical!  If she gets it right I'm home free!  I've always said that I should design stuff for those super sales guys at the State Fair to sell.  By the time they get done with their pitch everyone knows what to do with it!  By the way Mike - if you got this far - finger spinners are a great way to start kids on the road to addiction!