Do you still remember this all time favorite?

SPIROGRAPH: Revisited

by: @clicker

What can you do with a colored pens, blank sheet of paper and plastic gears?

Back in the early years, my childhood friend once came to our house and brought a colored pens, papers and couple of plastic gears. He then brag that he can make colorful shapes using the plastic gears and cogs. At first I hesitate to believe him. My instinct proposed to make a toy car. The plastic gears are for the wheels, the sheet of paper will serve as the body and the colored pens are to make some drawings or logos of the paper car. Then the challenge begins, I said "Ok, show me - if I am not satisfied with the result you will have to give all the plastic gears. I will use it as wheels, I will make a car out of it".

Suddenly, he is making these very interesting designs. Different combinations of the gear produce different design patterns. And the fun part of it is, you can make your favorite pattern design over again without making any mistake. Exact duplicate. My jaw drops and asked him how he do it?

Then you know what happens next. Run over mom and dad asked them to buys me those plastic gears. And when I got my set of Spirograph we spend hours making geometrical shapes.

What is a Spirograph?

Spirograph consisted of two different-sized plastic rings, with gear teeth on both the inside and outside of their circumferences. The gearwheels, which had holes provided for a ballpoint pen to extend through them to an underlying paper writing surface. It could be spun around to make geometric shapes on the underlying paper medium. It has several sizes of gears and shapes, and all edges have teeth to engage any other piece. For instance, smaller gears fit inside the larger rings, but also can engage the outside of the rings in such a fashion that they rotate around the inside or along the outside edge of the rings.

How to use Spirograph?

The point of a pen is placed in one of the holes of the rotor. As the rotor is moved, the pen traces out a curve. The pen is used both to draw and to provide locomotive force; some practice is required before the Spirograph can be operated without inadvertently disengaging the stator and rotor, particularly when using the holes situated near the edge of the larger rotors. More intricate and unusual-shaped patterns may be made through the use of both hands, one to draw and one to guide the pieces. Pens of various colors were frequently use to add texture and color to the design by switching colors in a set pattern or a random fashion.

Do you remember this toy back from early years?