Who invented the yo yo

The slightly curved edge of the yo-yos inner wall makes more tricks possible by reducing the friction on the string. Some yo-yo contests do use this shape, such as the Yoyofactory Loop Many people think of a yo-yo, the shape that comes to mind is imperial.

However, this is actually the least used of the yo-yos today. This shape of the yo-yo is great for people learning basic control and tricks.

Yo-yos are the number two best-selling toy in history; it is also one of the oldest, with a 2,year history. Your email address will not be published. Menu Skip to right header navigation Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar Skip to footer. Table of Contents 1 The invention of the yo-yo 1. Related posts:. When Was Opera Invented? Previous Post: « When was Xbox Invented? Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.

Footer Nevada Inventors Every advice a hobbyist or a professional needs. Tragically, in November of , the Duncan Company could hold on no longer and was forced into bankruptcy. It is the Flambeau Plastics Company that manufactures and sells the eleven different models of Duncan yo-yos today.

The yo-yo is, indeed, universal. In recent years, technology has affected a multitude of the products we use, and the seemingly simple yo-yo has been no exception. Beginning in the s, yo-yo manufacturers, seeing the benefit of periphery weight distribution, began rim-weighting their products for a longer spin.

And by the s, transaxle yo-yos were available with ball-bearing axles, increasing spin times once again. But this is not quite the end of the story. A basic spinning yo-yo was used to see what effect microgravity would have on it.

What they discovered was that a yo-yo could be released at slow speeds and gracefully move along the string. It was also found that the yo-yo must be thrown, not dropped, as there was no gravity to pull it down. And on July 31, , the yo-yo an SB-2 again made its way into space, on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, this time for an educational video including slow-motion yo-ing.

Whether the yo-yo was a Chinese, Greek or Filipino invention or some combination is difficult to prove. By the same token, it is also difficult to say with certainty whether the toy spread from country to country or whether the same basic pattern for the toy appeared in completely different parts of the world for no obvious reason. We do know that its use as a toy around the world and throughout history is unmatched. And, although the yo-yo has gone through periods of hibernation in its trek through the ages, its popularity, just like the toy itself, always comes back.

References: 1. It was not until the s that Americans first heard the word yo-yo. Pedro Flores, a Philippine immigrant, began manufacturing a toy labeled with that name. Flores became the first person to mass-produce toy yo-yos, at his small toy factory located in California.

Duncan saw the Flores toy, liked it, bought the rights from Flores in , and then trademarked the name "Yo-Yo. With this revolutionary improvement, the yo-yo could do a trick called "sleep" for the first time. The original shape, first introduced to the U. Duncan introduced the butterfly shape, a design that reverses the halves of a traditional imperial yo-yo.

The butterfly allowed the player to catch the yo-yo on the string easily, good for certain tricks. Donald Duncan also worked out a deal with the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst to get free advertising in Heart's newspapers. In exchange, Duncan held competitions and the entrants were required to bring a number of new subscriptions for the newspaper as their entry fee.

Duncan's massive factory produced 3, of the toys every hour making the factory's hometown of Luck, Wisconsin the Yo-Yo Capital of the World. Duncan's early media blitzes were so successful that in Philadelphia alone, three million units sold during a month-long campaign in In general, yo-yo sales went up and down as often as the toy. One story tells how after a market dip in the 's the Lego company was stuck with a huge inventory, they salvaged the unsold toys by sawing each yo-yo in half, using them as wheels on toy trucks and cars.

Yo-yo sales reached its highest peak in when Duncan Yo-Yo sold 45 million units. Unfortunately, this hike in sales led to the end of Donald Duncan's Company. Duncan bought out Flores and so obtained the rights to the trademark "yo-yo".

The precise date is uncertain but the "Yo-Yo" trademark was transferred in Other yo-yo companies during this period had to use terms such as 'return tops', 'whirl-a-gigs' or 'twirlers'. In , Duncan got into a legal battle over the use of the term 'yo-yo' with Royal , resulting in the court ruling that the term had become generic and so it could be not trademarked. As a result of the cost of fighting the lawsuit, as well as an expensive investment in the means to produce plastic yo-yos, Duncan became bankrupt and its assets were sold, including its products and goodwill to Flambeau Plastics Company , which now produces Duncan yo-yos [6].

The Duncan equipment would go to Strombecker Toys , which produced yo-yos under the Medalist name for a number of years. In , Mike Caffrey applied for a patent on an auto-return mechanism for a yo-yo that consisting of several different embodiments for an internal clutch. This US patent 4,, was issued to Caffrey on June 1, The first commercially available yo-yo based on this mechanism was the Yomega Brain in [7]. There exists an interesting story pertaining to the development of the first auto-returning prototype.

Caffrey hired engineer, Bill Lakin, to develop a working prototype around his pending patent. That first prototype's design was seriously flawed, as the central spool was so large that virtually no wound-up string engaged the parallel, internal yo-yo halves.

When this prototype was thrown, the clutch would open just inches from the player's hand, then would proceed to fall without imparting any additional rotational force upon the yo-yo. Caffrey devised an ingenious "work-around" to test the viability of the clutch; he made an 11' string that DID fill the spool and engage the internal parallel faces.

Caffrey threw this modified yo-yo from the roof of his father's house in Tucson, AZ. Not only did this long string get the yo-yo prototype rotating, the clutch closed at the proper time, returning the yo-yo more than 5' up the string.

Lakin designed a second prototype with the right-sized central spool. Yomega's original Brain yo-yo was developed around that second prototype. In , Duncan released their World Class yo-yo, which featured a couple of innovations, one of which would one day become standard.

The World Class' axle featured a special coating that, when combined with scientifically rim-weight Inertia Rings, allowed it to spin longer than anything else and even setting a former Guiness World Record for the longest-spinning yo-yo.