September 28, 2004
#233 :: Wheel-O
Iconic, kinetic, and about as simple-minded as a yo-yo, the Wheel-O was your own hand-held Sputnik. The red wheel spins on axle-tips of magnetized metal that cling to the wire frame. Tip the frame back and forth, and it spins faster as it rolls around the frame. Get good enough at it, you can get it up to around 500 rpm, and more than two complete "orbits" per second. It's the perfect desk toy - the quiet whir of magnets on steel, the whipping action of your wrist, the circular/linear motion always seem to relieve stress and restore focus when the project I've been staring at for far too long has begun to numb my wits. Sadly, there's not much to be found on the Web, even on Amazon's still-in-beta A9 search engine (which seems a bit unreliable, but has plenty of entertaining bells and whistles). Search results are far better for the still-in-mass-production Superball ("made of amazing Zectron(tm)!"), which is a heavy little object in its own right - though arguably not so elegant as Wheel-O. eBay is disappointing, offering only this ferociously ugly and overengineered knock-off. Dig deep enough, and you'll find some true believers still selling this space-age delight, along with Sea Monkeys, Etch-a-Sketch and Wooly Willy.