What Do You Do With Your Top(s)?

[Aerobie]

Hello Everyone,

I'm your newest member. I'm Alan Adler, inventor of various Aerobie products, including the Megatop. I'd like to learn more about what top aficionados like to do.

What kinds (types) of tops do you like?

What do you do with them?

I'll start with myself:

I have a shop including a lathe. If you've never used a lathe, they are a lot of fun to use. I'm 78 years old and still enjoy using my lathe. My first use was at the age of 13 in junior high metal shop.

So, I like to make tops and experiment with various ways to spin them. I was surprised to discover that a single wrap of a short string on the outside of my Megatop design was enough to spin it at 3,000 RPM. When I tried more wraps, there was little or no improvement.

I've also made conical tops (unlike the Megatop), which have their center of gravity so low, that they don't invert in flight. A conventional top is about like a cone plus a ball. These tops are cone only.

Another spin method I discovered was to fold the string in half, then start the wrap at the fold. Launch by pulling the opposite free ends apart. It's a good way to spin a top in place, like on a mirror or a table top. Just yesterday I saw a guy demonstrate this on youtube with his home-made top, and dental floss string.

So my top play is mostly experiments and development. I don't do clever string tricks. About the cutest thing I do is toss a Megatop in the air and catch it on something like the included catcher plate, or even an ordinary book.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Alan

PS If you'd like to meet me on video, google - Alan Adler - Inventor

[Jack]

it is an honour sir to say:

welcome home sir @-@

[trompillo]

Welcome to the forum, it is sure that here he will find a lot of information ¡

[Dick Stohr]

Alan, welcome to this forum you will get a lot of good info here about all kinds of tops. I have very good memories of meeting with Alex Tennant at Toy Fair NY and talking about aerobies and yo-yos. Then he sent samples to use in my school show the "Science of Spin". I was there the year they introduced their Megatop and got to try it. It was interesting but you could only throw it backhanded to spin on a plate or flat surface (no tricks). I explained that I thought there was a market for it but it would be very small in comparison to tops like the sidewinder. You will find here a terrific resource for answers you seek and testers that know what they are doing. We welcome another manufacturer interested in producing tops.

[ta0]

I am very happy to have you on the forum, Alan. I loved the original Aerobie and your three-blade boomerang was the first boomerang I threw successfully.

I collect and throw all kinds of tops, but the ones I spin by far the most are hollow conical tops for trick play.
The community of trick top players in the US is relatively small. But in a few countries millions are sold to kids for (easy) trick play. You can see photos of my visit to a Mexican factory that makes 1.2 million trick tops per month here: Visit to the Cometa factory

On the board below this you will find lots of posts about turning tops on a lathe. In particular, there is a great one by another Alan.

Welcome to the forum!

[Aerobie]

Alan, welcome to this forum you will get a lot of good info here about all kinds of tops. I have very good memories of meeting with Alex Tennant at Toy Fair NY and talking about aerobies and yo-yos. Then he sent samples to use in my school show the "Science of Spin". I was there the year they introduced their Megatop and got to try it. It was interesting but you could only throw it backhanded to spin on a plate or flat surface (no tricks). I explained that I thought there was a market for it but it would be very small in comparison to tops like the sidewinder. You will find here a terrific resource for answers you seek and testers that know what they are doing. We welcome another manufacturer interested in producing tops.

Hi Dick,
Good to hear from you. Are the "tricks" you refer to string tricks where the top is used like a diavlo? Or are there top tricks where the top spins on its tip and on a surface. I'd greatly appreciate links to some of the tricks that you have in mind.
Best,
Alan

[113]

Hello Alan,

You are the inventor of the Megatop and make spintops. Let me tell you firstly that like my other collegues of esteem on this forum, It is a pleasure to have you with us. Haha, however, I am bewildered that you do not know more about what we mean when we say "string tricks".

I am not laughing at you, well just a little, haha. Let me say that I too did not know what these tricks where until joining this forum. I was only messing around with my duncan imperial (Please see picture), before I came to this forum and realized that there was an entire world of spin tops, and that I had only scratched the very surface.

When we talk about "string tricks" it usually means these kinds of "cute" tricks, courtesy of my friend Chris (Neff).



"string tricks" if I am not mistaken can also be a subcategory of spin top tricks, but that is as far as my knowledge can take me. ta0 can tell you a lot more about it.

Welcome!

[Aerobie]

Thank you. That's a great video. Is Chris super-skilled? Or can lots of humans do that?
Is that what most of you on this forum do? Are string tricks the only thing you do with your tops?

I recall years ago an older man than me told me that when he was a kid, the top play was serious warfare. The tops were wood and they all filed their steel tips sharp. Then they threw their top as hard as they could at their opponents spinning top in an attempt to split it.

Best,
Alan

[113]

Dear Alan,

You are welcome, and I am glad you like it, it is the first (and favorite) spintop video I have seen. Most people? Most people think just catching the top in your hand, is a feat of magic. No, most people cannot do it, and if you are new to the game, you will see that it takes some practice to do anything. I personally find it to be the next level up after yoyos. A lot of humans can do it, however, just a very very small marginal percentage. I would say the formula is like this:

A= Number of people who care about yoyos
C=Number of people who care or have interest in spintops

A/1000=C

As you can see, spintops are very "niche", and we are very exclusive. we are very careful about who we allow into our ranks. Basically, we are cool, before we are cool..... I am sure you get the gist. (I am joking, lol).

I would say the video accurately describes what MOST of the people on the forum do, however there are very many who do other things with spintops. Like so:

Cecil and many others are expert modders who build amazing spintops of various porportions.

Many people (forget their name), on this forum like experimenting with spinning lightbulbs or beer bottles as tops.

We are currently having a contest to see who can cause the most destruction with their spintops as well. I am not in the contest, but the point shows that there are many other things people like to do with spintops.

The story of this old man is interesting. I have seen historical chinese and medieval manuscripts/writings/paintings/woodcarvings/i don't know what to call it, depicting people playing with tops, and I do not doubt that the history of tops is very long and complex. However, I wonder how that example would work... Could you split a wooden top with another metal tipped wooden top? That seems danerous, but also unlikely. What you are describing however reminds me of "battling". Some people on the forum do battle tops, but they are a minority.

The overwhelming majority of spinners like fixed and ball bearing spin tops, and the play associated with them. In case you didn't know, ball bearing spin tops have a ball bearing inside of them, that allow the tips to spin independently from the "top" of the top, allowing a greater ease doing some tricks.

I personally think the whole "top" spinning phenomenon is actually fairly new and underdeveloped. I have a Sofia spintop and think it is just a little crude for the 124$ price tag. I am not complaining, or griefing, but, it just seems a little underdeveloped. The bearing is held i place by a naked sharp screw. I don't mind, I really don't, but my point is that if spintops where as large a market as yoyo's you would not see, or more rarely see such crude almost improvised looking designs. It is not new, I get it, but compare it to yoyos, and you will see that yoyos for the same price tags are much more "developed" than the yoyos. You will not find a naked screw in a 100$ yoyo. The Sofia also has the logo on the spintop as a "sticker" that comes off during play. Again, I don't mind, but for a 124$ yoyo, this is again what I am referring to as "crude". Another example of this crudeness is the spintastic line of products, that have the top of they spintops held in place by what seems to be some kind of electrical or duct tape. These are extremey good tops, and worth the money, but you don't see this on yoyos of the same price range.

I believe this is largely to the extrmelely small niche market that tops have. There are literally countless yoyos, with new manufacturers and models coming out every day, just check out yoyoexpert, and you will see so many yoyos that you will not be able to decypher one from the other, most of them to a novice or untrained eye will seem identical to the other, but this is not true for spintops. Most supplies such as yoyoexpert or yoyoplay carry only two handfuls of kinds of spintops, while carrying a massive selection of yoyos. This is just my opinion anyway, and please don't get the wrong Idea, the Sofia is a great top, and I am not dissing S8 in any way, just trying to give an example of my own personal subjective and biased opinion.

That's just my two cents though, I hope I helped! If you have any more questions my friend, please let us know. Everyone at this forum has been extremely helpful showing me the ropes (or strings), so I would be happy to help new members who are struggling like I was.

Thank you for your interest!
113

[Dick Stohr]

Alan please see message I sent to you.

[the Earl of Whirl]

Welcome. I will look you up!!!

[Aerobie]

Thank you all who have responded. I'm hoping to hear from more of you. I'm especially interested in knowing what an average kid might do with a top. When I took prototype Megatops to groups of kids, I found the strongest interest came from 4th to 6th grade kids. They were enthusiastic.

Best,
Alan

[Aerobie]

One interesting aspect of tops is spin time. It's very natural to seek long spin time. It's often viewed as a measure of top quality.

But, it has its limitations. What would you do with a top which spun (on a mirror or smooth surface) for an hour? It would be boring waiting for the next opportunity to launch.

Best,

Alan

[Dick Stohr]

The Chris Neff video is a list of tricks that were required of players at high level spin top contests for the players that were not going to freestyle. High level contests are defined as Worlds, Nationals, Regionals, Juggling Festivals, Miamisburg, which many of us have been to multiple times. The freestyle players would do a routine of tricks of their choosing to music for 2 or 3 minutes. Judging was based on completed tricks, difficulty of tricks, and style of presentation. Many of the tricks were a part of the Science of Spin presentations that I did for 19 years in elementary schools, libraries, fairs, festivals, trade shows, parties, fun events, etc. Look at the "Trick of the Week" thread on this board for the higher skill tricks that many of the players on this board do on a regular basis. The most important thing about what we do is keep it FUN!

[Jack]

The freestyle players would do a routine of tricks of their choosing to music for 2 or 3 minutes.

freestyle is lyfe @-@



"what do you do with your tops?"

we dance, we dance............@-@