iTopSpin

My kids and I love Legos. At the end of last year we received our first "Lego Kids Club" magazines. As we flipped through the pages, we were excited to see that they created a new Ninja themed series that includes spinning minifigures--Ninjago, masters of Spinjitzu! Sort of "Lego meets Beyblade meets Bakugan", or more simply Lego minifigs that can be attached to a finger-spinner top base. The idea is to have Lego-dude spin battles, choosing mini-weapons and playing cards that influence the outcome of the brawl. Not as fast paced as some other battletop themed games out there, but a fun new direction for our favorite building bricks. Did I mention that I dig Legos?

http://ninjago.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwBie2huuvU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63sBPPBnnJs

COOL!

Looks like lots of fun. I bring out a couple big tubs of legos every year for our high school youth group. They go crazy for several hours making stuff and sharing old stories of growing up with legos! They get extra points if they make a "religious themed" lego creation and we put those up on a table so people can see them on the way to worship. Now I will have to be sure to add Spinjitzu to the mix!

Finally managed to break the 3-minute spin time barrier with a LEGO finger top like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBQ6oT241WI

My best hand-twirled run of 192 sec (3:12, not in video) was put in by the top below on a shallow biconcave lens lubricated with forehead oil, as Aerobie taught us.



I call these "Spinjitzu tops" because they take advantage of one of the few LEGO parts with a metal weight inside -- the Spinjitzu spinner, really a weighted turntable.



You can see how the spinner was originally meant to be used at 0:33 in this sample of the Spinjitzu game, LEGO's answer to Beyblade ca. 2011-2012.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4mq6iiMV7E

Spinjitzu warriors were well-designed to inflict mayhem, but they hardly qualified as tops: Spin times were usually under 10 sec, the wobbling was horrible, the travel was erratic, and they couldn't really fall over with the intended tip.

I fixed all that by keeping the weighted spinner and replacing everything else. Details on blog page.

hello Jeremy

your mod really makes a difference!

it's fun to see your tops parading while the stock models collapse after 10 sec

thanx for showing

jim

Jeremy, you have made a relaxing video. It is nice to see many tops together, and fun to see which one topples down last.

jim and Iacopo: Thanks -- glad you enjoyed the video. My favorite segment starts at 2:45. Thought for sure the red top was a goner and never expected the black and white top to be the last of the 3 to fall. And it all unfolded so slowly but so unpredictably -- kinda like OJ Simpson's famous slow car chase. Maybe I should have called them OJ tops.

this impresses me, i dont know how you make those spin so long @-@

Jack wrote: this impresses me, i dont know how you make those spin so long @-@

Thanks, jack! The main reasons: (i) The metal weight LEGO hid inside the widest part of the rotor. (ii) Very low center of mass. Good aerodynamics and a low-friction tip also help.

Good times, in more than one sense.

I wouldn't be able to spin that many finger tops without doing upside-down throws. But I guess that is left for the high center-of-mass video

I am flying from Denver to worlds. We'll throw some string Lego tops then

You are making some BEAUTIFUL finger spin tops. But I love the fighters.

ta0 wrote: Good times, in more than one sense.

I wouldn't be able to spin that many finger tops without doing upside-down throws. But I guess that is left for the high center-of-mass video

Thanks, ta0! After you've made over 700 LEGO tops and tested most of them many times to get the spins just right, you develop some skills. I posted the promised high-CM top videos here last night. All the spins were overhand there, too.

One reason I generally prefer overhand with my tops is that I can keep the plastic tips from getting dented by keeping the tips on the ground during twirls.

ta0 wrote: I am flying from Denver to worlds. We'll throw some string Lego tops then

Excellent! I really hope we can connect then. When will you be coming through?

cecil wrote: You are making some BEAUTIFUL finger spin tops. But I love the fighters.

Many thanks, Cecil! Have to admit, the Spinjitzu fighters are pretty cool -- especially in slow motion. They're also very well designed for their intended purpose.

I'm working on some Spinjitzu-like battle tops that use the same weighted turntables but replace the LEGO minifigures and gory weapons with better balanced gizmos that make contact by expanding under centrifugal force.

[Mod Edit: Split this from another thread and merged three different threads about Spinjitzu]

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ta0 wrote: Tim discovered Spinjitzu.

The top and launcher shown are from LEGO's Ninjago Spinjitzu Slam series, still in stores.

As you can see, laucher performance is miserable. But you can get a decent finger top by ditching the minifig and replacing it with the stem assembly below...



Slam sets use the smaller "tornado" shell on the left. But the larger, older, heavier Spinjitzu tornado on the right gives longer spins (20 vs. 15 s).

Like the stem above, the 4 tip options below work with both tornados. The squarish profile of the threaded black Slam tip (2nd from left) promotes an unusual behavior -- rapid travel at 0° tilt.



The tornado top at far right is a lot of fun in my gyrocyclotron (see 5:17). None of the other tips support rolling regeneration in this bowl...

https://youtu.be/WA67H3hJAY0

I had to order one ($10 plus shipping), as I didn't have a top that I could start by slamming it
I'm surprised that the system is all plastic as I would have thought it needed a metal launching screw to withstand the abuse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4gsjG4dA-s

A blue rubber band holds the vanes close when not spinning fast.