Yo-yo, one of the world’s oldest toys!

Yo-yos might be one of the oldest toys in the world, but a U.S. patent was awarded for it on November 20, 1866, based on a design improvement. Still popular around the globe, yo-yos have been with humankind for thousands of years.

When you played with a yo-yo, have you ever wondered when and where this toy came from? The truth is, we don’t have an exact answer for either…. While historians suggest that the toy likely originated from what is now Greece, China, or the Philippines, yo-yos have been around for thousands of years. In fact, archaeological digs have unearthed Greek vases from around 500 BC that show a youngster playing with an object similar to the modem yoyo.

Energy-converting machine

For a toy that looks so simple, yo-yos have a fair bit of science governing their operation. It is the physics that is going on that makes it keep spinning for a long time, sleep or hang at the end of the string and climb back up again. Putting it simply, yo-yos are energy-converting machines. The working of yo-yos therefore involves the constant changes of energy from one kind to another.

When held in our hands, a yo-yo has potential energy as it is held high above the floor. When we release the yo-yo, the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy gradually. By the time a spinning yo-yo is at the bottom of the string, it converts all the potential energy it originally held to kinetic energy.

A tug is all it takes

When it climbs back up the spring, it does the reverse, converting kinetic energy to potential energy. While this is similar to a pendulum bob, what makes it different and keeps it going is the fact that we can keep giving it more energy to play around with. By tugging at the string that we are holding, a yo-yo can be kept moving along the string for a considerable amount of time, stopping eventually due to friction and air resistance.

Despite being played with through much of history, yo-yos really exploded in popularity in the 20th Century. And that happened when it was mass-produced and marketed heavily in the U.S., leading to widespread adoption and usage throughout the world.

The first recorded reference to any type of yo-yo in the U.S. came only in 1866, when Ohio tinkerers James Haven and Charles Hettrich came up with a design improvement. Their patent on November 20, 1866 has an image of a whirlgig and mentions “a new and useful bandelore” (whirlgig and bandelore are other names of yo-yo).

This patent is important not only because yo-yos were making their official foray into the U.S., but also for a couple of other reasons. For one, it was the first time rim-weighting was employed to maintain momentum as the patent “marginal swell… exercises the function of a flywheel”. Secondly, it also showed that patents can be used to protect design improvements in toys.

Flores calls it yo-yo

A little over half a century after this, Pedro Flores, a Filipino man, sold hand-carved yo-yos in California and staged demonstrations to show how they worked in the 1920s. In fact, it was Flores who trademarked the name “yo-yo”, which is Tagalog for “come come” (Tagalog forms the basis of the national language of the Philippines).

American Donald Duncan was impressed by what he saw Flores doing, and he bought the trademark and even piggybacked on the business model. Apart from having people to demonstrate the toys, Duncan also sponsored contests to garner more interest in the product. By promising greater circulation of newspapers in exchange for free ads for these contests, Duncan set about a new marketing idea in motion. The idea’s success meant that Duncan’s yo-yos were soon a household name.

In the decades that followed, the Duncan Company dominated the yo-yo industry. In the 1960s, millions of these toys were sold on a yearly basis in the U.S. alone. By 1985, yo-yos became one of the first toys to reach space as it was one of the 11 toys taken into orbit by the Discovery space shuttle. Throughout its long and storied history, yo-yos have thus enjoyed a lot of popularity while also having periods of hibernation – ups and downs similar to how the toy functions.

Picture Credit : Google 

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