The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More

The Way Toys Work: The Science Behind the Magic 8 Ball, Etch A Sketch, Boomerang, and More
by Ed Sobey and Woody Sobey
Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1556527454

I don't remember how I found this book. I might've just been browsing the library. Maybe I heard about it somewhere. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that it was a lot of fun to read. It's no secret that I love toys. I also love tinkering with things. This book was a cool combination of those two topics.

The authors essentially gathered a collection of toys for the sake of taking them apart to figure out how they work. The toys ranged from the very simple Magic 8 Ball to the potentially very complicated bicycle. For the more complicated toys (e.g. the bicycle), they authors glossed over a lot of details. That's to be expected, I think. Bicycle tinkering, alone, could fill a library of books. Overall, the toys were well covered. My one complaint--and I'm not sure it really counts as a complaint--is that several of the toys seemed a bit repetitive. Ok, not so much the toys themselves the scientific principals behind then. Again, I think that's to be expected. If two toys both operate on compressed air, it's only natural that the details would be pretty similar.

I did really like that the authors covered the history of many of these toys. And I especially liked how the authors provided information on how to create your own, homemade versions of the toys. I'll be making a stomp rocket in the near future.

I also now know how the Nintendo Light Zapper works. It wasn't what I expected. Interesting.