Vintage 1950s
Toys
Pogo Stick
The modern pogo stick was invented by
Max Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall,
from Germany. A German patent was registered in Hanover on March 1920 for
a device they called a "spring end hopping stilt". It is thought that
the beginning two letters in these men's last names is where the word
"pogo" comes from.
The two-handle pogo stick design was
patented by George B. Hansburg in 1957. Hansburg described the origins of
the Pogo name colloquially in a story of a young Burmese girl with the
aforementioned name whose father had created a crude version of the device so
that the daughter could travel to the local temple for prayers. An earlier
design with a single upright vertical handle patented in 1955 posed
something of a risk to the user's chin. Later, improvements to the pogo stick
have been made, including the Vurtego, Flybar, and the BowGo, which allow operators to jump
much higher than with a simple coil spring pogo stick. Backflips and other
tricks are now possible on some of these newer sticks, which has contributed to
the growth of the new sport of Extreme Pogo ("Xpogo").
Whatever improvements or different
types are made, the basic design idea of a person riding on a spring remains
the same.
Extreme
Pogo, or Xpogo, is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks
on extreme pogo sticks, defined by their durability and potential for height.
Today's Xpogo sticks have the potential for over 10 ft. of height
(measured from the ground to the bottom of the tip). Extreme pogo is a
relatively new extreme sport and is currently emerging into popular culture as
evidenced by the growing number of Xpogo athletes around the globe.
No comments:
Post a Comment