Читать книгу Spike the Triangle - Matt Ph.D. Caniglia - Страница 4

When I was in fourth grade, a fellow student brought an amazing flying ring to school. Extremely flat and perfectly round, it had a rubbery body surrounding a rigid concentric rib. The yellow and red circular ribbon of fun harnessed tremendous power.

When thrown across Sacramento’s expansive athletic field of Phoebe Hearst Elementary School, this ring hovered so incredibly far for such a long time that electric waves of silver glitter transmitted from this perfect throwing object into me; I was shocked. Somebody had made a “turbo” Frisbee®!

Throw and catch is the staple to many team sports. Back and forth is the action, highlighting skills of both delivery and reception. The Frisbee® disc embodies these two acts. Once a craze like the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee®, a flying disc, is now an establishment of world culture; a necessity of every trip to the beach, picnic, or tailgate party. This predictable hovering saucer helped spawn the efficient flying ring.

Internet research helped me remember the amazing ring from fourth grade as being the “Skyro®,” inventor Alan Adler’s 1970’s prototype to his world famous Aerobie® Pro flying ring. Just like the Frisbee®, the Aerobie® Pro and its predecessor, the Skyro®, have thrilled millions of enthusiasts in simple throw and catch for almost forty years. The flying rings, both Skyro and Aerobie, have been said to produce “amazing throws,” “holding the world’s record for farthest thrown objects,” while being centerpieces of “thrilling hours of throw and catch.” With the consistent ability to travel the length of a football field or two, the Aerobie® Pro comprises the horsepower of an internal combustion engine. The sleek ring is an evolution of the Frisbee®, capitalizing on its flight characteristics. When these engineered refinements perfected a maximum efficient flight, extreme improvements of distance and hang time resulted.

Adler refined the Frisbee® aerodynamically; making his ring-version fly farther with more lift and faster with less drag, and guess what…he did the same thing with the boomerang. My reaction: shock waves, once again.