Spinjas
About
A battling top toy from Parker Brothers in the late 80's. (Most likely 1989)
Ok, not really a "game" per say, but you have to start somewhere and it has a page on Board Game Geek so that's good enough for me.
Each of the tops fits into a wind up spinner. The top of the case is bowl shaped. Wind them up and drop them into the bowl. The last top spinning wins.
Thoughts
Tim: I'm going to have to change my review of this after giving it one more shot. You will get out of it what you put into it. Yes, the basic game is still "drop the tops into a bowl and watch them bounce off of each other" but if you apply a bit of science to it you can get some interesting questions.
Some examples
- How long will the top spin? The answer is "it varies". If you let it spin in the provided bowl it will spin about 45 seconds but if you spin it on a tabletop you can get it to spin 110 seconds. While the bowl is a softer plastic than the tabletop I think the energy loss in this case is because when you spin the tops in the bowl they move in a spiral pattern until they eventually stabilize in the bottom of the bowl. My guess is this movement creates friction slowing down the top.
- I have 2 tops and when spun on a flat surface, one of them stays in the same place and the other has an erratic movement. My guess is that the top that moves has a imperceptible flaw at the point. This top spins less than half of the time as the first top.
- What is the world record for a spinning top. Answer: 51 minutes.
- There is a company that sells a "mechanical spinning top" that has an internal gear and power that spun over 24 hours. It's called Limbo. Unfortunately while they got a successful Kickstarter in 2018 they have run into manufacturing issues are trying to find someone that can manufacture motors.
- Bonus point. What happens when you spin the Spinja on the Floating UFO base? (The UFO base is a 4x4" base with a donut shaped magnet in it. When the included top is spun on the base you can float the top in the air due to the magnet). My thought was that the donut shaped magnet in the base would keep the top from falling off, which it more or less did. What I did not expect was the that it also reduced the spin time to 30 seconds or so. As soon as the top reached the edge of the base it would stay on the base, but immediately start slowing down. A very interesting interaction of metal spinning in a magnetic field.
Laura: A lot of fun! Like rock em sock em robots but with tops and a bit more preparation. You can't just overpower your opponent after the release. I really enjoyed it, especially being with other people... What if you spin the top on other surfaces? Around magnets? And while you have to be relatively level when deploying, it's not necessary to be 100 percent correct.
Trivia
- At the moment the basic set that I have sells for about $50 on Ebay with the more rare tops going for $40 for the top alone. Pretty crazy for a $5 kids toy.
- A quick internet search turned up no less than four lengthy pages talking about this obscure kidss toys showing once again, that the internet has everything.
- The current incarnation of this type of toy seems to be the "Beyblade Battle Tops".
7-8-2020