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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia\'s quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (January 2008) |
For other uses, see Yo-yo (disambiguation).
The yo-yo is a toy consisting of two equally sized and weighted disks of plastic, wood, or metal, connected with an axle, with a string tied around it. First becoming popular in the 1920s, "yo-yoing" is still enjoyed by children and adults alike.
1791 illustration of a woman playing with an early version of the yo-yo, then known as a "bandalore".
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A yo-yo has three basic parts: a round body, which holds the axle that is connected to a string, which is held by the player.
A yo-yo is made from two equally-sized disks, connected by the axle. The axle is firmly connected to each disk and does not rotate relative to either half.
The two halves are separated by a thin gap, determined by the length of the axle. On some yo-yos the gap size can be adjusted. A string is wrapped around the axle, and the gap is generally narrow enough to only accommodate a few turns of the string before the string lies on top of itself.
When thrown, the body of the yo-yo spins as the string unwinds.
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To use, the player puts his/her finger through the loop at the end of the string and grasps the yo-yo. Then the player throws it downwards with a smooth light motion. When reaching the end of the string, the yo-yo can be made to "sleep," the axle of the yo-yo spinning within a loop of string. As the body of the yo-yo spins, a gyroscopic effect occurs, stabilizing the yo-yo on its axis and permitting time to perform a number of movements. By flicking the wrist, the yo-yo can be made to return to the player\'s hand, with the cord again completely twisted into the groove.
Generally, any movement or combination of movements which result in the return of the yo-yo to the player\'s hand in this fashion is considered a trick, although this is not an absolute standard.
Yo-yoing is a popular pastime around the world. Although generally associated with children, it is common for people who gain a level of proficiency at the sport in youth to continue playing into adulthood. A yo-yo player is referred to as a yo-yoer (most common), yoer, yoist, thrower," a flinger" or simply as a player.
Boy playing terracotta yo-yo, Attic kylix, ca. 440 BC, Antikensammlung Berlin (F 2549)
The earliest surviving yo-yo dates to 500 BC, made using Terra cotta disks. A Greek vase from this period shows a boy playing yo-yo.History, yo-yo.com, <http://www.yo-yo.com/history_noflash.asp>. Retrieved on 18 February 2008Valerie Oliver (1996), History Of The Yo-Yo, Spintastics Skill Toys, <http://www.spintastics.com/HistoryOfYoYo.asp>. Retrieved on 18 February 2008 (includes photos)
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This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia\'s quality standards. Please improve this article if you can (March 2008). |
The yo-yo is often credited as having been a weapon invented in the Philippines a few centuries ago.Mary Bellis, The History of the Yo-Yo, inventors.about.com, <http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa120297.htm>. Retrieved on 9 March 2008 Despite the popularity of the claim, the idea of Yo-yo as weapon has been denounced by the Filipino American National Historical Society.Eloisa Gomez Borah, Was the Yo-Yo really a weapon? and other Yo-Yo myths Americans of Filipino Descent - FAQs, <http://personal.anderson.ucla.edu/eloisa.borah/filfaqs.htm#yoyo>. Retrieved on 9 March 2008 The idea is also debunked as an urban legend by the chairman of the American Yo-Yo Association’s History and Collecting Committee. Lucky Meisenheimer, M.D, Lucky’s History of the Yo-Yo, Yo-Yos.net, <http://www.yo-yos.net/Yo-yo%20history.htm>. Retrieved on 9 March 2008
The name yo-yo may have been derived from the Filipino word tayoyo which means to eviscerate.[dubious] The term was first published in a dictionary of Tagalog words printed in 1860.[citation needed]
The principal distinction between the Filipino design and previous,[clarify] more primitive "back-and-forth" models[clarify] is in the way the yo-yo is strung. One continuous piece of string, double the desired length, is twisted around itself to produce a loop at one end which is fitted around the axle. Also termed a looped slip-string, this seemingly minor modification allows for a far greater variety and sophistication of motion, thanks to increased stability and suspension of movement during free spin.
U.S. patent #59745.
The first United States patent on the toy was issued to James L. Haven and Charles Hettrich in 1866 under the name bandalore,U.S. Patent 59,745 dated November 20, 1866 however, the yo-yo would remain in relative anonymity until 1928 when a Filipino American named Pedro Flores opened the Yo-Yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California.Pedro Flores, National Yo-Yo Museum, <http://www.nationalyoyo.org/museum/pedroflores.htm>. Retrieved on 18 February 2008 The business started with a dozen handmade toys; by November of 1928, Flores was operating two additional factories in Los Angeles and Hollywood, which altogether employed 600 workers and produced 300,000 units daily.
Shortly thereafter (ca. 1930), an entrepreneur named Donald Duncan recognized the potential of this new fad and purchased the Flores Yo-yo Corporation and all its assets, including the Flores name, which was transferred to the new company in 1932. Duncan\'s first yo-yo thereafter was the Duncan O-BOY. Donald Duncan is reputed to have paid more than $250,000, a fortune by depression era standards. It turned out to be a sound investment, making many times this amount in the years to follow.
In 1946, the Duncan Toys Company opened a Yo-yo factory in Luck, Wisconsin, prompting the town to dub itself \'Yo-yo Capital of the World\'. Ironically, the very sign erected by the town advertising that fact contributed to Duncan losing its trademark.
Declining sales after the Second World War prompted Duncan to launch a comeback campaign for his trademarked "Yo-Yo" in 1962 with a series of television advertisements. The media blitz was met with unprecedented success, and thanks in great part to the introduction of the Duncan Butterfly, the yo-yo was more accessible to the beginner than ever.
This success would be short-lived, however, and in a landmark trademark case in 1965, a federal court\'s appeals ruled in favor of the Royal Tops Company, determining that yo-yo had become a part of common speech and that Duncan no longer had exclusive rights to the term. As a result of the expenses incurred by this legal battle as well as other financial pressures, the Duncan family sold the company name and associated trademarks in 1968 to Flambeau Plastics, who had manufactured Duncan\'s plastic models since 1955. Flambeau Plastics continues to run the company today.
In 1962 a Duncan sued a rival yo-yo manufacturer, the Royal Manufacturing Company, claiming trademark infringement.Company Profile - Royal, Museum of Yo-Yo History, <http://www.theyoyomuseum.com/museum_view.php?action=profiles&subaction=company&company=royal>. Retrieved on 18 February 2008 In 1965, New York Supreme Court ruled in Royal\'s favor, finding that the term Yo-Yo had become a Genericized trademark.Donald F. Duncan, Inc. v. Royal Tops Mfg. Co., 343 F.2d 655 (7th Cir. 1965) In the decision, the court cited the sign as referring to Luck as the \'Yo-yo capital of the world\'. If Yo-yo was a trademark Duncan should have insisted the sign read \'Home of the Yo-yo brand return top\' or similar words that reinforced Duncan\'s claim that Yo-yo was a brand name and not a generic term. Interestingly, Duncan had purchased the Canadian Yo-yo company Cheerio in 1954. Al Gallo, Cheerio\'s principal demonstrator, had already bought Cheerio\'s right to the Yo-yo trademark in Canada. Gallo formed National Yo-yo and Bo-lo Company after leaving Cheerio. In a similar suit, the Canadian Supreme Court decided in National\'s favor. The term Yo-yo is still a trademark in Canada. Al Gallo sold his company to Parker Brothers in 1978. Hired as a consultant by Parker Brothers, Gallo continued as a demonstrator into early 1981. Lee Thurber, Craig Hamilton (also known as writer Stash Cairo) and Harry Lee were some of the final demonstrators for Parker before Parker sold their rights to the trademark in Canada in 1982.
The 1970s saw a number of innovations in yo-yo technology, primarily dealing with the connection between the string and the axle. In 1978, dentist and yo-yo celebrity Tom Kuhn patented the “No Jive 3-in-1” yo-yo, creating the world\'s first "take-apart" yo-yo, which enabled yo-yo players to change the axle.
Soon afterwards in 1980, Michael Caffrey patented what would later become the Yomega Brain, a yo-yo with a centrifugal clutch transaxle. Designed with a free-spinning ball bearing linkage, "The Brain" could spin much longer than previous fixed-axle designs. In addition, the axle was "clutched" with spring-loaded weights which would pull away from the axle at higher speeds and grab again at lower speeds. The result is an automatic return of the yo-yo when speed drops below a given threshold.
Swedish bearing company SKF briefly manufactured novelty yo-yos with ball bearings in the 1970s.
In all transaxle yo-yos, ball bearings significantly reduce friction when the yo-yo is spinning, enabling longer and more complex tricks. Subsequent yo-yoers used this ability to their advantage, creating new tricks that had not been possible with fixed-axle designs.
The 1990s saw a resurgence of the popularity of the yo-yo and yo-yo culture.
Continued development of yo-yo technology is evident in the widespread sale of the Yomega Brain, based on Michael Caffrey\'s design, and the Playmaxx Pro-yo, a take-apart fixed axle yo-yo.
In 1990, Tom Kuhn released the SB-2 yo-yo (short for Silver Bullet 2), a high-performance ball bearing transaxle made with aluminum. This marked a major breakthrough for the modern yo-yo, as it was the first ball bearing yo-yo that actually worked. This ensured extremely long spin times and the ability to return as well. This yo-yo, (along with his many other accomplishments in the yo-yo world), eventually brought him the title "Father of the modern yo-yo", receiving the "Donald F. Duncan Family Award for Industry Excellence" in 1998. He was the first to receive this award.
In the late 1990\'s, Yomega partnered with HPK Marketing and helped fuel the yo-yo boom that spread across the globe. From this partnership, Team High Performance was born, a group of skilled demonstrators that toured the world. In this period, Yomegas were heavily marketed in Japan, where Bandai produced several yo-yos under the Yomega name which were sometimes different from those sold in the US.
At the turn of the century, 1999-2000, Yomega partnered with McDonald\'s and distributed a large number of Yomega X-Brain and Firestorm yo-yos at outlets throughout the US.(blue)
The World Yo-Yo Contest is held every year in Florida, USA during early August or late July. This contest takes the winners from national yo-yo contests around the world and pits them against each other. Countries such as the United States, Brazil, Japan and the UK hold competitions at the national and regional levels. In addition, national yo-yo contests, without regionals, are held every year by Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, France, Germany, Switzerland, The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Australia.
A yo-yo competition normally consists of two parts, a set of compulsory tricks and a freestyle, where points are scored for each and the winner is the yo-yoer who scores the most points. Compulsory tricks (also known as a trick ladder) are a set of tricks that have been chosen before the contest, and the competitor must successfully complete each trick on their first or second attempt to score points. The freestyle is when the yoist performs a routine to their choice of music in front of a panel of judges, and is judged based on difficulty of the tricks, synchronization with the music and artistic performance.
The TV Times world yo-yo championship was held in the United Kingdom in 1974 with heats across the United Kingdom and a final in London in 1975, the championship was sponsored by the Louis Marx toy company with the \'Lumar\' brand of yo-yo. The competition was judged by a celebrity panel in each city and also Lumar demonstrator and European yo-yo champion Don Robertson. The winner of the final was Simon Harris (intermediate category). The championship was not repeated.
1A (string tricks) division finalist, Augie Fash, at the 2004 US nationals in Chico, California.
Currently there are eight yo-yo divisions to compete in:
Competitors usually bring a number of yo-yos to the performance stage with them to allow for mid-routine replacements in the case of knots/jams (common with string tricks), string breakage (common with looping tricks), or drops (common with offstring tricks).
Keeping a yo-yo spinning while remaining at the end of its uncoiled string is known as sleeping. Sleeping is the basis for nearly all yo-yo tricks other than looping, the player first putting the yo-yo in a "sleep" before throwing the yo-yo around using its string.
In competition, mastery of sleeping is the basis for the 1A division.
Looping is a yo-yo technique which emphasizes keeping the body of the yo-yo in constant motion, without "sleeping".Science News, Week of April 17, 2004; Vol. 165, No. 16, p. 250
Yo-yos optimized for looping have weight concentrated in their centers so they may easily rotate about the string\'s axis without their mass contributing to a resistance due to a gyroscopic effect.
In yo-yo competitions, looping plays a strong role in the 2A division.
In the off-string technique, the yo-yo\'s string is not tied directly to the yo-yo\'s axle, and the yo-yo is launched into the air by performing a "forward pass" to be caught again on the string.
Yo-yos optimized for "off-string" tricks have flared designs, like the butterfly shape, which makes it easier to land on the string.
Yo-yo competitions have the 4A division for off-string tricks.
In freehand tricks, the yo-yo\'s string is not tied to the player\'s hand, instead ending in a counterweight. The counterweight is then thrown from hand to hand and used as an additional element in the trick.
Developed in 1999 by Steve Brown, freehand is considered to be the fastest-growing style of yo-yo play. Steve Brown was awarded a patent on his freehand yo-yo system, which was assigned to Flambeau Products (Duncan\'s parent company).
In yo-yo competitions, counterweight yo-yos are emphasized in the 5A division.
Yo-yo bodies come in a number of form factors or "silhouettes," each designed with specific advantages in mind.
The original shape of the Yo-yo, as created by the Duncan Toys Company, the "traditional" shape is rounder than the other forms. This enables easier "looping" play due to the position of the string upon release from the player\'s hand.
Popularized in 1954 by Duncan as the "Imperial," this shape is still the best-selling Yo-yo shape.
An obsolete Yo-yo shape. Basically the butterfly turned inside out.
Debuting in 1958, the butterfly has a wider string gap to make it easier to catch the yo-yo body on the string. The butterfly looks a bit like the separated halves of a standard yo-yo that have been reconnected back-to-back. More advanced players use butterfly shaped yo-yo to perform better. Although the butterfly shape is good for \'string tricks\' its not very good at \'looping\'.
Each silhouette may have more weight distributed at either the center of the yo-yo or the rim. More weight towards the rim will make the yo-yo more stable for string tricks; more weight towards the center will make the yo-yo easier to turn and therefore better for looping tricks.
Heavier Yo-yos will have more angular momentum when spinning at a given speed, and thus will spin freely for a longer period.
Some modern yo-yos are made from a "take-apart" design, designed to be taken easily apart and reassembled by the player. This enables the replacement of yo-yo components, including the string, renewable friction sources, or even trans-axle components.
Some take-apart designs allow the player to reconfigure the yo-yo\'s halves. In the Tom Kuhn No Jive 3-In-1, the halves may be attached in three different configurations, resulting in a traditional, butterfly, or "pagoda" silhouette. In the Yo-yo Factory FlyMaster, the body has two different "shells" to convert to and from an off-string yo-yo.
Another innovation to the yo-yo is the ability to adjust the gap between the two halves of the yo-yo. In most designs, this is accomplished by twisting the yo-yo halves, but some designs (such as the Tom Kuhn Silver Bullet) can be disassembled for adjustment without twisting. This second option eliminates the possibility of the yo-yo coming out of adjustment during play.
The basic innovation since the 1990s is the transaxle, a system where the string is not directly connected to the axle that connects the two halves of the yo-yo.
With the innovation of the transaxle, the notion of a yo-yo\'s response has become important to players. The "response" is a qualitative estimate of how easily the yo-yo will exit a "sleep" and return to the hand of the player.
A number of yo-yo accessories are available as "after-market" modifications-- players buy items separately from the yo-yo to augment performance over the original model shipped from the factory.
Originally manufacturing yo-yos from wood, yo-yo technology improved in the 1960s when the industry switched to plastic. A plastic yo-yo has a uniform weight distribution and is unaffected by the variations in density that plague wood yo-yos.
Increasingly, the highest of high-end Yo-yos are being made of metal, Normally Aluminum, Steel, Titanium, and very rarely Magnesium, alloys.
Exotic plastics are also coming into play: the "Milk", by manufacturer Born Crucial; the "Silk", by manufacturer Alchemy; and the "Gung Fu", by manufacturer Death by Yo Yo, are made almost entirely from the low-friction plastic Delrin. Yo-yos made from Delrin are also just as high end as metal ones.
The operation of a yo-yo comes from rotational inertia causing the string to be wound in the opposite direction returning the yo-yo. When the string is connected to the shaft with a loop, the yo-yo will continue to spin at the end of the string instead of returning, unless the yo-yo is jerked slightly allowing the slack string to bind and allowing return.
Patents have been issued to create more complicated mechanisms to allow tension control and an adjustable mechanism.United States Patent 6331132United States Patent 7192330
The yo-yo and "yo-yoing" have been a part of popular culture for nearly a century, and it is hardly surprising that yo-yos appear in many fictional works and even historical events.
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