Tomy’s classic mechanical engineering
toys are still amazing today
Mini
Mechanical
Marvels
As a toy inventor in the 1970s when so many
toys were going electronic, I was impressed by
the fantastically clever all-mechanical designs
made by Tomy Toys. Here’s a look at some
vintage Tomy toys, with details on their still
amazing gizmos.
POPOIDS
This preschool toy was simple but really fun!
Stretch and pose the colorful plastic tubes into
different lengths and shapes (Figure
A
), then join
together with injection-molded parts to create
figures, vehicles, or just kooky constructions
(Figure
B
). Polyethylene tubes are flexible, but
what made them also stiff? The accordion folds
had sides of unequal lengths. Those alternating
large/small, large/small ridges folded in a bi-
stable way. The flexible wrinkles made the stiff
crinkles that held their shape, like a giant elbow
drinking straw. The best part was the sound and
feel of the scrunchy tubes, which you can relive at
youtu.be/5Aw46UoMlK8.
Today, the same fidgety, fun feeling lives on in
PopSockets cell phone handles.
BIG LOADER
This ingenious playset has three mechanical
construction site vehicles: dump truck, front-end
loader, and bulldozer. They scoop, haul, and dump
the plastic “rocks” (balls) into hoppers, down
chutes, and around bins (Figures
C
,
D
, and
E
).
You control the continuous action with mechanical
pushbuttons to send the busy vehicles back and
forth around the track. Endlessly fascinating with
just the right combination of automatic action and
easy control!
There’s another level of fascinating action in
this clever playset. All the mechanical effects are
achieved with just a single motorized chassis. As
it motors along, the wedge-shaped chassis sheds
one body and then slides underneath to smoothly
pick up a different body (Figures
F
and
G
).
Tabs and cams molded into the track activate
the bodies’ linkages: the truck bed raises and
dumps; the dozer scoops, lifts, and dumps; and
the loader catches a load and tips to unload. What
makes it work is rack-and-pinion gearing. Racks
are molded along portions of the track and a
hidden power pinion on the bottom of the chassis
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