Modelling Scale Figures Book

688.728 SOB

This book has a much more self-published feel than, say Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them by Tim Walsh. Timeless Toys is a coffee table book, with pretty paper, lots of color photographs and professional design.

But I like this book much better.

This book briefly covers history, who designed the toy and how it works. The real meat of this book is how they took it apart (hacksaw and dremel for the Etch A Sketch), how it works, any science experiments you might be interested in trying, and if it's possible to make your own.

I learned that the Magic 8 Ball is not full of water. There's a small-ish cylinder with fluid in it, and there's a "bubble remover" built in. I learned that you shouldn't take apart the Etch A Sketch because the powder inside is very fine, gets EVERYWHERE, and is aluminum. But I learned that the Magna Doodle might just very well come apart and go back together for you if you're careful.

You can make a balsa wood airplane out of a styrofoam meat container. You can make stereo-scopic pictures a la View-Master that really work. I learned that (supposedly) the Furby was banned from sensitive areas of the NSA because they thought the fact that it was programmed to slowly "build" its vocabulary meant that it was recording language. And the yo-yo is more complex than I had thought.

This is a great book, B&W photos aside, because they do what every kid wants to - take apart toys that were never meant to come apart.