Preliminary Work

Skeleton Outline

Welcome (Home Page)
- Timeline on the homepage
- Brief what it is why we picked it
- Small index of where you can find things
Antecedents
- What were the inventions that lead up to the Yo-Yo that we are talking about
  - 500 B.C. – Early Disk (Yo-Yo)
  - 16th Century – Yo-Yo Weapon
    - Philippines – where our “inventor” immigrated from
Creation
- Creation of the modern-day Yo-yo and how it came to be
  - 1928 – Pedro Flores came to the U.S.
  - 1928 – Donald Duncan took over the company
  - 1932 – Duncan got the trademark name for Yo-Yo
  - 1946 – Move to Luck, WI
    - Named the Yo-Yo Capital of the World (Woo!!)
  - 1960 – Plastic Yo-Yos started to be manufacturing
  - 1962 – 45 Million Yo-Yos were sold
  - 1965 – Federal Court of Appeals took away the Trademark Yo-Yo
    - Not just name for it, it was the toy itself
Popularization
- How it “blew up” in a sense
  - 45 Million Yo-Yos being sold and still could not keep up with demand even though there were only 40 Million kids in the U.S.
Documentary
- Where we are going to put our documentary/videos/images
- Kind of a media base for all of the stuff that we find media based
Final Bibliography
- This is going to be where we are posting our final bibliography for the project itself
Preliminary Work
- Bibliography and Proposal are going to be under this tab
- List of Media that we are coming up with will go here
  - Images/Videos

Here are our Bibliography and Proposal for our project.

Bibliography

2019. Encyclopedia.com. Encyclopedia.com. September 10, 2019. https://www.encyclopedia.com/sports-and-everyday-life/games/games-and-hobbies/yo-yo

-It gives the history, the materials, design, manufacturing process, and the future of yo-yos.

Bellis, Mary. 2019. “He Did Not Invent the Yo-Yo, but He Sure Made It Famous.” ThoughtCo. ThoughtCo. July 1, 2019. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-history-of-the-yoyo-1992695.

-Why the Yo-yo is famous today

Conover, Ernie. “Yo-Yos and Spinning Tops.” Woodworker’s Journal 38, no. 6 (December 2014): 24. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx direct=true&db=f5h&AN=99122748&site=ehost-live.

– The article gives instructions for making yo-yos and spinning tops from wood.

Crosby, David F. 2002. “The Yo-Yo: Its Rise and Fall.” American History 37 (3): 52. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=6782918&site=ehost-live.

– Focuses on Pedro Flores, and how he made the toy yo-yo popular in the United States.

de Izarra, Charles. 2011. “Mechanical Study Of A Modern Yo-Yo”. European Journal Of Physics 32 (4): 1097-1106. doi:10.1088/0143-0807/32/4/022.

– The paper introduces the mechanical aspects of the yo-yo.

“Duncan Yo-Yo.” n.d. Duncan Yo-Yo | National Toy Hall of Fame. Accessed September 25, 2019. https://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/duncan-yo-yo.

-Original Leading Company for Yo-yos

Goto-Jones, Chris. 2015. “The High-Stakes World of High-End Yo Yos.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company. April 9, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/the-yo-yo-effect/389868/.

-Explains how yo-yos were used as weapons before it became a toy.

Krupa, E, and W Tanska-Krupa. 1997. “Newton’s Second Law And The Physics Of The Yo-Yo”. Physics Education 32 (3): 185-187. doi:10.1088/0031-9120/32/3/019.

– The paper goes into Newton’s Second Law and how it pertains to the physics of the yo-yo.

Meisenheimer, Lucky. n.d. “National Yo-Yo Museum: Pedro Flores.” National Yo-Yo Museum | Pedro Flores. Accessed September 25, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20080120172822/http://www.nationalyoyo.org/museum/pedroflores.htm.

-Gives more of the backstory of Pedro Flores the inventor of the yo-yo.

Murfin, Brian. 2012. “Exploring the Yo-Yo: Filipino Physics Fun.” Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas 49 (1): 29–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/00368121.2011.591449.

– The paper goes into the Filipino origins and history of the yo-yo.

“National Yo-Yo Museum.” n.d. National Yo-Yo Musem. Accessed September 25, 2019. https://nationalyoyo.org/.

-It not only houses the world record holder for biggest yo-yo but is a good source for pictures.

Oliver, Valerie. n.d. “ History Of The Yo-Yo.” Museum of Yo-Yo History. Accessed September 25, 2019. http://www.yoyomuseum.com/museum_view.php?action=profiles&subaction=yoyo.

-It gives the history and pictures of different yo-yos.

“US6331132B1 – Yo-Yo Having Improved Tether Tension Control and Adjustable Mechanism.” n.d. Google Patents. Google. Accessed September 25, 2019. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6331132.

-a patent for the yo-yo

“US7192330B2 – Yo-Yo Having Adjustable Responsiveness.” n.d. Google Patents. Google. Accessed September 25, 2019. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7192330.

-a patent for the yo-yo

“Whirligig.” Whirligig – Ohio History Central. Accessed September 23, 2019. https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Whirligig.

-Other name for a Yo-yo

Winner, Tara. 2019. “Out of This World: A Brief History of the Yo-Yo.” Out of This World: A Brief History of the Yo-Yo | The Strong. August 20, 2019. https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/play-stuff/2017/05/out-of-this-world-a-brief-history-of-the-yo-yo

– The article gives a brief history of the yo-yo.

Woodford, Chris. 2018. “How Do Yo-Yos Work?: Who Invented Yo-Yos?” Explain That Stuff. July 21, 2018. https://www.explainthatstuff.com/yoyos.html.

-Explains specifically the mechanics of yo-yos

“YO-YO BANNED IN SYRIA – Blamed For Drought By Moslems BEIRUT (Syria), January 21. – Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 – 1954) – 23 Jan 1933.” n.d. Trove. Accessed September 25, 2019. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48418581.

-Highlights the cultural effects of the Yo-Yo in other parts of the world

Bibliography for Yo-yo Download

Yo-Yo Proposal

For our group project for this semester, we have decided to present a piece of technology that will be familiar to everyone in the room, the yo-yo. The reasons for our choosing of this piece of technology are simple. Every single person in America knows what a yo-yo is. It is an incredibly common toy in this country even to this day. We are certain the vast majority of people in this country have owned a yo-yo at some point during their childhood, and many of those people have fond memories of mastering the different tricks and techniques that can be done with the toy. With this in mind, we thought it would be interesting for the viewer to delve into the history and mechanics of this beloved piece of machinery. The tools we will be using to create this documentary are not vast or complicated at all. We will give our presentation using one or many different yo-yos (preferably of different varieties, wood, metal, plastic, etc.) and we will be using a small handheld tool to take apart the toys to demonstrate the inner workings of the mechanism. The structure for both our blog and our documentary will be as follows. We will start by presenting the history of the yo-yo, specifically, it’s history in this country. Following this, we will discuss the yo-yo itself, including the mechanics that make it work. The predecessor to the yo-yo was believed to have originated in ancient Greece as early as 500 B.C.(There is evidence that the toy has its origins in ancient China as well). Referred to as a Disk, these early toys were made out of wood, metal, and terracotta. It was tradition for children during this time who came of age to offer their toys to the gods. Most of the Disks sacrificed were made out of Terracotta. Elsewhere in the world, during the 16th century in the Philippines, hunters would use a rock tied to a cord up to 20 feet in length to attack animals multiple times while hiding in trees. Examples such as these give further evidence to predecessors of the yo-yo originating from all over the world. In 1928, a man named Pedro Flores emigrated from the Philippines to California and almost immediately founded the Yo-Yo Manufacturing Company. That same year, a businessman named Donald F. Duncan Sr. saw his first yo-yo in San Francisco while Pedro Flores was demonstrating the toy to a large crowd. Impressed by the toy, Duncan soon bought the company from Flores for more then $700,000 and renamed it to Duncan Company. Flores later said, “I am more interested in teaching children to use the yo-yos than I am manufacturing the yo-yos”. Duncan at this point had received the trademark for the word yo-yo in 1932, forcing his competitors to use other names for their own version of the toy. Examples include comeback, whirl-a-gig, returning top, and twirler. In 1946, Duncan moved to Luck, Wisconsin, now known today as the yo-yo capital of the world. This increased production to making 3,600 yo-yos per hour. In 1960, plastic yo-yos (that we still use to this day) began to be manufactured by Duncan Company. By 1962, the company sold a record 45 million yo-yos in a country with only 40 million kids, and yet still could not keep up with the demands for their product. In later years, Duncan Company ran into legal troubles. In 1965, the Federal Court of Appeals ruled that the trademark that was held on the word “yo-yo” was no longer valid. This was due to the argument that the term yo-yo was so widespread by this point in time that it no longer described the toy, it was the toy. That same year, Duncan Company was forced into bankruptcy, selling off all it’s equipment and assets, including it’s naming rights to Flambeau Plastics Company, who continue to manufacture yo-yos under the Duncan brand to this very day. There are eleven different models of Duncan yo-yos today, as well as countless other brands of the toy. The yo-yo has gone through many different phases throughout history, and continue to entertain millions of children today, not just in America, but all over the world as well, and hopefully will continue to do so for years to come.

Proposal-for-Yo-yo Download

Category: Preliminary Work

Duncan Yo-yo (Key Image)

List of Media

Website Outline

Documentary Outline

Bibliography and Proposal for the Yo-yo