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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsMy six year old grandson is getting an Etch a Sketch this Xmas...
I found them available in a toy catalog that I get regularly.
My son told me that Jack doesn't know anything about the Etch a Sketch but I think it is perfect. He lives in an apartment so the toy can't be big and take up too much space. The Etch a Sketch is perfect!
redwitch
(14,944 posts)I love the old toys! Etch a sketch was always a favorite.
Ohiogal
(31,999 posts)I stuck them all over the house!
Squinch
(50,949 posts)But don't worry. It came back.
C_U_L8R
(45,002 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)but then he'll get wrapped up in the sheer genius of this toy in terms of its creative potential!
C_U_L8R
(45,002 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)When I called my son to ask whether Jack already had it, he immediately loved the thought of Jack playing with a toy that he had had back in the day!
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Ohiogal
(31,999 posts)Next he'll want a Spirograph and a ViewMaster set!
Lochloosa
(16,064 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Ohiogal
(31,999 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Doncha know Twump will eliciit a frown from him. My son and his wife detest Trump.
Ohiogal
(31,999 posts)torius
(1,652 posts)I ordered an led drawing board, like a boogie board, for me. cost about $12.
sheshe2
(83,763 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)elleng
(130,905 posts)Happy Hanukkah! Starts @ sunset, waiting to hear from my grands whether they like their first gifts, INCLUDING YOyos!!!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)My granddaughters were brought up Jewish and were Bat Mitzvahd but my daughter couldn't give up Christmas. So there we have it.
YOYOS! Another vintage toy!
MiniMe
(21,716 posts)Aristus
(66,367 posts)Drawing a circle on an Etch-A-Sketch.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,368 posts)Drawing stairs.
Glamrock
(11,800 posts)Where do you put the batteries?
Kaleva
(36,301 posts)Have several pre-school grand kids and an Etch a Sketch might be the perfect toy for them to play with when they come over for me to babysit while the parents are busy doing something.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I'd better get busy ordering one from the catalog. They might run out!
Tomorrow, credit card in hand, I will call the toy catalog folks and Amazon about the Souza book for my grown kids. This is gonna be a bang-up holiday season.
I won't be traveling to Boston for Xmas this year. I'm getting too old and discombobulated for the train and I can't drive it any more...sigh...
Just a Weirdo
(488 posts)Along with those plastic pin thingys where you push down your hand and create a pattern
Wolf Frankula
(3,600 posts)and told him it was a laptop computer.
Wolf
pansypoo53219
(20,976 posts)Kaleva
(36,301 posts)Might pick on up next time I go to town which will be near Christmas.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,446 posts)I'm sure they must be. They were cool. Whoops -- no hyphen. Editing title....
Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical roulette curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. It was developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold in 1965.
The name has been a registered trademark of Hasbro Inc. since 1998 following purchase of the company that had acquired the Denys Fisher company. The Spirograph brand was relaunched worldwide with original product configurations in 2013 by Kahootz Toys.
....
Operation
Animation of a Spirograph
Several Spirograph designs drawn with a Spirograph set using multiple different colored pens
The original US-released Spirograph consisted of two different-sized plastic rings, with gear teeth on both the inside and outside of their circumferences. They were pinned to a cardboard backing with pins, and any of several provided gearwheels, which had holes provided for a ballpoint pen to extend through them to an underlying paper writing surface. It could be spun around to make geometric shapes on the underlying paper medium. Later, the Super-Spirograph consisted of a set of plastic gears and other interlocking shape-segments such as rings, triangles, or straight bars. It has several sizes of gears and shapes, and all edges have teeth to engage any other piece. For instance, smaller gears fit inside the larger rings, but also can engage the outside of the rings in such a fashion that they rotate around the inside or along the outside edge of the rings. Kenner also introduced Spirotot, Magnetic Spirograph, Spiroman and various refill sets.
To use it, a sheet of paper is placed on a heavy cardboard backing, and one of the plastic piecesknown as a statoris secured via pins or reusable adhesive to the paper and cardboard. Another plastic piececalled the rotoris placed so that its teeth engage with those of the pinned piece. For example, a ring may be pinned to the paper and a small gear placed inside the ring. The number of arrangements possible by combining different gears is very large. The point of a pen is placed in one of the holes of the rotor. As the rotor is moved, the pen traces out a curve. The pen is used both to draw and to provide locomotive force; some practice is required before the Spirograph can be operated without inadvertently disengaging the stator and rotor, particularly when using the holes situated near the edge of the larger rotors. More intricate and unusual-shaped patterns may be made through the use of both hands, one to draw and one to guide the pieces. It is possible to move several pieces in relation to each other (say, the triangle around the ring, with a circle "climbing" from the ring onto the triangle), but this requires concentration or even assistance from other people. Pens of various colors were frequently included with the sets, or one could obtain them elsewhere, to add texture and color to the design by switching colors in a set pattern or a random fashion, as seen in the image above.
Mathematical basis
{snip things that can't be cut and pasted}
Well, of course! Any child could have told you that.
Denys Fisher (11 May 1918 17 September 2002) was an English engineer who invented the spirograph toy and created the company Denys Fisher Toys.
He left Leeds University to join the family firm, Kingfisher (Lubrication) Ltd. In 1960 he left the firm to set up his own company, Denys Fisher Engineering, in Leeds. In 1961 the company won a contract with NATO to supply springs and precision components for its 20 mm cannon. Between 1962 and 1964 he developed various drawing machines from Meccano pieces, eventually producing a prototype Spirograph. Patented in 16 countries, it went on sale in Schofields department store in Leeds in 1965. A year later, Fisher licensed Spirograph to Kenner Products in the United States. In 1967 Spirograph was chosen as the UK Toy of the Year.
Denys Fisher Toys, which also produced other toys and board games, was sold to Palitoy in 1970 and it was subsequently bought by Hasbro. Through the 1980s & 1990s Fisher continued to work with Hasbro in developing new toys and refining Spirograph.
Lars39
(26,109 posts)A sturdy retro kit.