I’ll bet you’ll never look at a slinky the same way again. This young man has done things with this simple plastic toy that I really did not think was possible and yet here it is in living color for any that want to take a look at the clip. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call them Kung Fu slinky tricks but they are pretty amazing given that if anyone else just tried this on a lark they’d probably break the slinky and even pull something just for the effort. How he’s making the slinky do these tricks is hard to fathom but the manner in which he is doing it kind of speaks to the fact that it is possible.
A lot of us have seen how a slinky works. Once it’s set into motion the force of gravity or the kinetic force that sets the coils to moving tends to keep it moving as that energy is transferred over and over. Only when it comes to a surface where that energy is diffused does it tend to coil up and remain still. The slinky was actually devised by accident in 1943 when an engineer named Richard James was working on a new and experimental spring to use for ships in order to cushion their loads when they shifted. This was to avoid any undue wear on tear on items that were being shipped. When he accidentally knocked a prototype off of a shelf he was amazed to see how it ‘walked’ along the ground thanks to the added energy it had been given. From that point on the Slinky became a great idea.
The earliest slinky’s were made of metal however and were a bit of a hazard since they could develop sharp edges that would cut the user if they weren’t handled properly. These slinky’s could also snag on skin, become riddled with sharp or damaged sections from misuse or contact with various objects, and were not good for kids that hadn’t yet learned how to really play with such a toy. For a while the Slinky kind of faded out since it wasn’t entirely practical and was more of a way to spend one’s time doing nothing. But eventually they made a comeback and were made of plastic this time so that they wouldn’t be as prone to injuring the user.
But again, I’ve never seen anyone use a slinky like this kid in the clip. He’s an artist to put it simply. The manner in which he moves to keep that Slinky moving in its many different directions is just amazing. It seems to take so little effort and in many cases it really doesn’t since when you transfer energy to a Slinky it will move in the direction it’s pointed until you decide to change that direction and give it the needed energy to do so. One more thing to be amazed by and to be a little envious of.
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