What is a Taketonbo?

A taketonbo (in English, Bamboo Dragonfly)

is an ancient Oriental flying toy.

A taketonbo is:

• a hand powered toy helicopter that really flies

• a very simple design - just a propeller blade and a stick

• a toy that originated in China over 1500 years ago and is now very popular in Japan

  The Helicopter Rotor and the Propeller: China, Forth Century AD. By fourth century AD a common toy in China was the helicopter top, called the 'bamboo dragonfly'. The top was an axis with a cord wound round it, and with blades sticking out from the axis and set at an angle. One pulled the cord, and the top went climbing in the air. Sir George Cayley, the father of modern aeronautics, studied the Chinese helicopter top in 1809. The helicopter top in China led to nothing but amusement and pleasure, but fourteen hundred years later it was to be one of the key elements in the birth of modern aeronautics in the West. This information was copied from the Ask Asia Website. http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/lessplan/l000019.htm

• a device that incorporates the study of high level physics in a small, easy to make package

• a challenge to build (from scratch)

• a whole lot of fun to fly

http://paoprj.lucksnet.or.jp/earth-c/html/9911nov/html/000002.html

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John D. Hickey