I previously wrote about the beginnings of the Original Slinky (June 25, 2020) but now I’d like to expand on the subject a little. It was inducted into “The Strong National Museum of Play”[1] in the year 2000. After 15 years of impressively successful Slinky sales, the inventor, Richard James left his family and moved to Bolivia with an evangelical cult and translated bibles.
His wife Betty carried on, made millions of dollars, and passed away at 90 years old. A decade before her death she sold Slinky to POOF Products[2]. If you un-coil the metal Slinky it is 80 feet long! There are many uses for a Slinky besides just going down a stairway (which I admit is a lot of fun)
You can use one for a fancy pen, marker, and pencil holder. Another desk use is a photo or envelope stand. It could also be a fashion accessory if you were to wear it as a bracelet. A Slinky also makes a fine TV or radio aerial (I’m surprised never thought of this one)!
A Slinky coil can be used to demonstrate transverse and longitudinal waves (impress at the Science Fair). There are great photo and video opportunities available with a metal or plastic Slinky, like the multi-colored ones. You can protect bird feeders from squirrels. If your feeder is on a pole, connect the Slinky to the bottom, and when the squirrel climbs and grabs the bottom of the coil it un-coils and delivers the squirrel to the ground.
The plastic slinky can make a bird perch or tunnel. You could also put it in the fish take and a fish tunnel. You can also do lots of amazing tricks to amaze your friends (see video below). If you attach one end of the metal Slinky, with tape, to an open container, stretch it out a bit and tap the other end with a hard or metal object, it will make a brilliant amplified laser sound.
You can do other experiments with a Slinky like “The Magnetic Field in a Slinky” that I found here.
The Slinky Poof Dog was the first Slinky animal and was even used as a character in the “Toy Story” movies. There was also the Googly EyeGlass, a pair of gag glasses with the eyeballs hanging on Slinkys. Toys in the past included the Slinky Train, Slinky Kitten, Slinky Worm, Slinky Jr., and the Giant Slinky.
Footnotes
- In 1982, the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum opened to the public at One Manhattan Square in downtown Rochester. Over the following two decades, the museum grew dramatically, expanding its collections, facilities, and resources. Now known simply as The Strong, it spans more than 285,000 square feet and serves global audiences on-site at the museum, online, and through the work of its International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the World Video Game Hall of Fame, the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, the Woodbury School, and the American Journal of Play.
- Poof-Slinky, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of simple, inexpensive toys including the classic spring Slinky and various foam balls, airplanes, and rockets. The firm also produces Slinky Science educational and scientific toys and the Ideal line of tabletop games. Poof-Slinky operates manufacturing facilities in Plymouth, Michigan, and Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, where Slinkys are still made on machines the toy’s inventor Richard James designed in the 1940s. Poof-Slinky is owned and managed by Richard Dallavecchia and Doug Ferner.
Sources
Illumination
Poof-Slinky
Lasec Education
The Strong
Wikipedia
