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The 50 Year History of Play-Doh
tanagra writes "50 years ago U.S. Patent No. 3,167,440 was granted to Noah McVicker and Joseph McVicker for a "plastic modeling composition", (which was originally intended to be a wallpaper cleaner) now called Play-Doh. Little did they know that they had created the substance of childhood memories as well as many a childhood meal, unfortunately. Play-Doh persists as one of the most well known and popular children's "toys". As you attempt to clean your children's Play-Doh out of the carpet, the car, and the bathtub; take a look back with us at how it all got started."
or you have SO that does.
t ed_colo.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/03/playdoh_scen
cologne that smells like playdoh.
I've always wondered what goes into making that distinctive smell.
Better even than "that New Car Smell". And a lot cheaper.
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
When I was a kid, I used to watch ZOOM and in their ZOOM DO segment, they showed us how to make play-doh. I made it and colored it green.
Played with it for a few days, not as pliable as the original stuff but good enough and it got more playtime because we made it.
Put it in its tupperware container in the dark pantry and forgot about it. A couple of days later, it grew out of it's container and made a mess in the pantry.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
It seems like such an odd idea...... I'm curious if it actually works...
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
He got that way after suffering (as a young child) a very specific brain injury as a result of a disease. No mention of any radioactive poisonous spiders, however.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
You can also take a look at the patent itself at http://patft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm. Then search for patent US 3167440. Click the images button. They have a terrible viewing system, but it's there!
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
The basic problem with the homemade 'Play Doh' type modeling dough is that the food coloring tends to bleed into your hands, clothes, and usually anything it touches.
Despite its tendency to dry into a hard, nearly impossible to remove mass in your carpet (or your kid's hair), the 'real' Play-Doh product seems to hang onto its color very well.
{ - Generic Guy - }
In my college physics lab we used play-doh as a resistor - figuring out how resistance changed with varying surface areas and the like. Also measured whether there were differences in resistance among different colors of play-doh. Needless to say the play-doh got pretty fried at the points where you connected it to the rest of the circuit. Of course the play-doh was used more for constructing artistic masterpieces than using it as a resistor!
:x :x :x
I had my final earlier tonight too - that was rough - and no mention of play-doh resistors - in fact very little problems dealing with dc circuits at all, the only stuff I was really good at!
Now, why am I paying 40,000 bucks a year for this
or KlayDough ?
Which points out yet another flaw with the current patent system - the whole intent of patents was to encourage people to make their inventions known, so that once they expire the knowledge becomes public domain. Here, with humble little play-doh, we have an example of that intent not working, being evaded - the patent was granted, and has expired, yet nobody knows the formula... perfect Playdoh making has NOT become something anyone can do, and the stuff has not become a generic commodity as patent law intended. Playdoh got a patent without really truly revealing their invention, and now still gets to maintain its secret.
Play-doh got a 20 year free ride, essentially having ripped off the public.
This space available.
I gave up play-doh when I found out about plasticine, and I gave up plasticine when I found out about polymer clay like Fimo and Sculpey which you can work much like plasticine but you can bake and make permanent.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned one of the best uses for Play-Doh, the game Claydonia from Dragon magazine. Details:m l
h tml
http://www.lclark.edu/~gamesoc/games/claydonia.ht
In a recent episode of "How It's Made" on the Science channel they showed how they make a Play-Doh like product called Tutti-Frutti. This clay has various scents added to so it can smell like candy or fruit. It is made by:
http://www.bojeux.com/ANG/Products/section/tutti.
They don't say what it tastes like though.