Day 12: The Rubber Bee GT
File Under: Coolest Yo-Yo That never got made.
While searching through some of my old yo-yo photos this morning, I came across these pics of a Bumble Bee GT molded out of a soft white rubber material. I'm not sure who took the photos, but I believe it was Tom Van Dan Elzen that emailed them to me (so presumably he took them).
The concept is awesome, a rubber yo-yo with no plastic or metal hubs. Just a simple one piece design with room for a brake pad and spacers.
Of course the yo-yo had a major flaw though... when spinning it would just go crazy. The centrifugal force would pull the rubber shells in crazy directions making the yo-yo wobble at first, then it would just totally lose control and go unstable.
To this day, I don't think anyone has successfully built a yo-yo with a rubber hub. The closest thing would be Yomega's Crossfire yo-yo (video of squishy hubs here). But of course the Rubber Bumble Bee GT was a very simple design and the Crossfire was equipped with like 16 pieces.
Labels: 28 days project
posted by Doc Pop at 6:03 PM
1 Comments:
You know, I'm not sure it would not work because of the very design of the Bee.
I wonder if a pog that was sufficiently stiff (stiffer than the ones they shipped with) could hold it in shape. I know this depends on the type of rubber. You should have seen the prototype Mondials. One throw and those rubber o-rings would stretch, come off and roll across the floor. It was fun, but not terribly practical. (I think henry diabolos had this issue also with their first run back in the early 90's or so.)
-GReg
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