Creating an Executive Toy - Essay Example

When I started to work on the assignment my first idea was to make a children toy. There are already millions of different kinds of toys. Some of them are very famous, other have no-known names. Some of them have been developed only a few years ago, other have been played with for thousands of years already. Toys and games have been around as long as children have been around. The development of technology enabled production of new kinds of toys but the basic concepts often remained the same. "The materials and technology may have changed over the years, but the toys of today are very much like those that ancient children played with: Dolls, hoops, hand-made animals, little weapons, vehicles and boats" (Toy stories). However, the interconnection between the toys and technological development is not one-way. Amazingly, the contribution of toys to the progress of technology is quite significant. The article "The Antikythera mechanism" emphasizes that The origins of much modern technology, from railway engines to robots, can be traced back to the elaborate mechanical toys, or automata, that flourished in the 18th century. Those toys, in turn, grew out of the craft of clockmaking. And that craft, like so many other aspects of the modern world, seems to have roots that can be traced right back to ancient Greece. Not only technological mechanisms but the simplest and beloved by many children dolls, animal figures and tops originated in either ancient Greece or Rome. Children in Greek and Roman families played with balls, clay dolls and clay rattles, hand carts, hobby horses, hoops and spinning tops. The playtime often was used to teach children to use things the adults use in everyday life. Through the toys and games children were introduced to the important activities of household economy, carpentry, hunting, etc. It became obvious in the time of Dark Ages & the Middle Ages. When children were old enough to play parents also taught them to work and use weapons and tools through the play. "They would play outdoor games using pebbles, knucklebones and barrel hoops. Some would have hand made wooden toys such as tops, hobby horses and puppets." (Brief history) Attitudes have changed over the centuries. Puritans believed wanted to ban Holy days which were traditionally days for celebrating and playing games and toys became rare. Victorian parents believed that children should not play games on a Sunday but they were allowed to play with Noah's Arks because of their religious significance. Another factor that influenced the development of toys besides religious and social attitudes was definitely technology. The 18th century saw mass produced toys that were cheaper to make and buy. "Wealthy parents spent their money on printed instructional toys that would aid learning and morality, such as pictorial alphabet cards, dissected map puzzles, books and board games" (The Brief History). In the 19th century the main retailers of technical toys were opticians who sold steam engines, magic lanterns, building blocks and optical toys such as the kaleidoscope and zoetrope. Many famous toy companies started business in the 1890s and 1900sWorld War II brought toy production to a standstill. There was a revival in home made toys and knitted toy patterns became popular. In the 20th century, the cinema and later TV, has had a major influence on the retail of toys. Advances in technology have provided toy makers with new ideas for models and toys to replicate the society. Models and building bricks enable children to play imaginatively constructing and creating their own versions of the things they see around them. The popularity of these toys is often governed by events, such as the growth of the railways in the 19th century or the advent of space travel in the 20th century. Trains were the first form of modern transport to be copied as toys and wooden pull-along trains were available from the 1840s onwards. "By the 1870s the wooden toy train was replaced by tinplate locomotives and tenders with carriages which were often powered by clockwork or steam propulsion. The boilers leaked so much on steam trains that they became known as 'dribblers'" (Models). The popularity of many toys goes in cycles as new generations rediscover the toys for themselves. The use of battery power and computers has changed the way that toys operate. However the principles behind the toys are often the same with clockwork train replaced by the electric, the walking and talking doll relying on batteries rather than clockwork and string. Now there is also a return to wooden toys, traditional looking teddy bears and simple games such as marbles and spinning tops. Various materials are used in production process of children toys, not only usual clay, wood, plastic, fabrics and stuffing, but also the most unimaginable materials like plant seeds or flowers. In the process of production many people is employed, including designer and artist. The toys can be painted, dyed, embroidered or decorated in other ways. However, my interest was dedicated not to soft toys and dolls, but to the mechanical toys, which move using some laws of physics. These are balance toys, so called automata and wind-ups. The earliest European example of a balance toy was created in 16th century by a Frenchman, although most widely known in the Orient. In the balance toys swinging weight is usually placed above or below toy and assuring the movement to the balance position. Many popular paper-mache, roly-poly toys, circa 1900, were counterweighted with pebbles or buckshot The term "automata" is grammatically plural of an automaton and refers to figures that are relatively self-operating and capable of performing multiple complex movements. Early examples feature doll-like bodies with composition or bisque heads. Another group is called wind-ups. This term is often used interchangeably for both clockwork and spring-driven toys; the difference between two groups lay in quality and length of activation. It takes thirty minutes for the clockwork toy versus the two to three minutes for the coil or barrel spring mechanism. Toy glossary defines spring-driven toys as "stamped tinplate gears activated by a spring uncoiling on what are popularly known as toy wind-ups. Actually, they wind down after two to three minutes." On the contrary, clockwork mechanism is made of machined brass and steel and used to animate toys for as long as thirty minutes as interlocking gears move to uncoil spring. "Clockwork toys were produced as a drive system for toys by clock makers beginning in 1862 and ending about thirty years later in the Northeastern United States, most notably in Connecticut". (Toy glossary) After performing some research my final choice was to concentrate on the executive toys only. This kind from my standpoint is more challenging in development process. This kind of toys on the desk wouldn't embarrass the top manager of the most prominent company. The description and instructions can be condensed as follows: "Looks great on a desk or table. Guaranteed to be a conversation starter. Place it where you normally like to sit and relax."(Collectables range) The material used vary greatly depending on the particular kind, but the most popular are metal, wood and plastic. The executive toy has simple or complex mechanism that consists of few movable parts. As a general rule to captivate and hold the eye the executive toy employs levitation and spinning parts in perpetual motion. Often used is clock work or wind up mechanism, or magnets. The examples of executive toys are geometrical shapes or stylized nature elements like tree or well. Probably the most widely employed thematic is model of planetary system. Not only the contemporary managers like to watch the Moon, Mars and Venus moving on their imaginary orbits. This kind of toy is thousand of years old. It is a surprising fact but the executive toys have their roots in the ancient history and are as old as dolls or pebbles. The example of an ancient executive toy is a recent archeological finding, now known as the Antikythera mechanism: It was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox, with dials on the outside and a complex assembly of bronze gear wheels within. X-ray photographs of the fragments, in which around 30 separate gears can be distinguished, led the late Derek Price, a science historian at Yale University, to conclude that the device was an astronomical computer capable of predicting the positions of the sun and moon in the zodiac on any given date. (The Antikythera mechanism). Researchers at the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick have developed the hi-tech industrial moulding tool based on the "pin art" that can often be seen on the many managers desk. "Pin art" toy consists of several moveable pins of the same length. When you push it with a hand or other object, on one side the pins push out onto the reverse of the box forming the shape of the object used. The researchers created what they call the "intelligent tooling", but admit that the initial idea was taken directly from observing the executive toy. The new tool that allows managers successfully create new products is " a more precise network of pins which are covered by a flexible plastic sheet. The pins can be precisely controlled to pull the sheet into the shape of any product or component that a company wishes to mould. The tool is reusable." (Warwick) Considering the perspectives and fascinating process of creating executive toy I found the subject of this research extremely interesting. Bibliography: 1. "A Brief History of Toys." Hampshire County Council. October 26, 2004. June 2, 2005. 2. "Collectables range quality hardwood executive wooden toys: amazing levitation models, possibly the antiques of the future June 2, 2005 3. "Models". Hampshire County Council. October 26, 2004. June 2, 2005 4. "The Antikythera mechanism: an ancient piece of clockwork shows the deep roots of modern technology". The Economist print edition. September 19, 2002. June 2, 2005 5. Toy glossary. June 2, 2005. http://www.antiquetoys.com/glossary.html 6. Toy stories. June 2, 2005. 7. Warwick University. "Researchers turn executive toy into Engineering Tool", 1999. June 2, 2005 Read More