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Chinese Roly Poly Toy Overview – Local and Professional

Do you know the toy story roly poly clown? It is cute? Do you want to know more about the roly-poly toy? Here we go.

General Introduction to Chinese Roly Poly Toy

The roly poly/tumbler/tilting toy (called budaoweng, 不倒翁) is an ancient Chinese toy for kids. The first record of it was in the Tang Dynasty. It is shaped like a human; thanks to its special shape and weight distribution, it will shake right and left once been touched and finally will return to its upright position. The name of Chinese roly poly – budaoweng, literally means an old man who will not fall, can also be used as a metaphor for people who are good at coping with the social relationship and can maintain their position for a long time.


The History of Chinese Roly Poly

According to the “Folk Tang Yan” written by the Wang Dingbao in Five Dynasty, the Chinese tumbler toy was transformed from the Tang Dynasty’s “Drunken Master”, also called “Exhortation of Liquor Hu” and “Wine beard”. It was a tool to persuade wine by ancient people. Carved in human shape with wood; the upper part is fine while the lower part is thick. When drinking, people sit around the table and put the “Drunken Master” on a plate in the middle of the table. The older man first to twist it with his hands and make it rotate. When “Drunken Master” stops, the person pointed by Drunken Master’s finger should drink, and then the drinker continue to twist “Drunken Master”, and so on, until people enjoy themselves with wine. 

Drunken Master

Later, an unknown folk artist saw this “Drunken Master” was very cute and he improved it to create a tumbler toy with Ukrainian gauze and official robe. It was quickly welcomed by people, especially children. According to roly poly toy’s characteristic of being able to stand upright immediately after it has been brought down, its name is used to satirize those who cleverly maintain their status and endure by relying on power. 


How Does a Roly-Poly Toy Work?

Objects with upper part lighter and lower part heavier are more stable, which means that the lower the center of gravity is, the more stable it is. When roly poly is balanced in the upright state, the distance between the center of gravity and the touch point is the smallest, that is, the center of gravity is the lowest; thus, upright state is the most stable state of the toy. After deviating from the equilibrium position, the center of gravity always rises, so it will shake and finally go back to the upright state. Therefore, the balance of this state is a stable balance. So, no matter how tumbler swings, it doesn't fall.

Roly Poly Doll Theory

Body structure

Roly poly is hollow shell, light weight and its lower body is a solid heavier hemisphere. Tumbler's gravity center is in the hemisphere. There is a touch point between the lower hemisphere and the bearing surface. When the hemisphere rolls on the bearing surface, the position of the touch point changes. The tumbler always stands on the supporting surface with a touch point. It is always a pedestal.


When roly-poly doll is under the influence of an external force, it must lose its balance. After the external force is removed, it will automatically return to equilibrium. This shows that the tumbler has an ability to resist external forces and maintain balance. This is the stability of balance. The formation of this ability to resist interference and maintain balance rely on roly poly’s stress situation.

Stress situation

1. The balanced situation of tilting toy. Tumbler on the desktop, by the role of two external forces: one is the gravity G, the earth's attractiveness to the tumbler; the other is support, the reaction of the desktop to tilting toy. According to the balance condition of the object, as long as the two forces are equal in magnitude, opposite in direction, and act in a straight line, the tumbler can maintain a balanced state. 

2. The roly poly toy’s inclined stress situation. The tumbler is affected by two torques when it is tilted. We call the influence of the external force as an interference; the external force forms an interference torque. There is another resistance torque formed by its own gravity. The tumbler toy’s natural state is upright. Due to the external force, the external force generates a torque to the touch point between the tumbler and the touch surface, so that the tumbler tilts and breaks the original balance. In addition, gravity does not generate torque for the tumbler is upright, the line of gravity and the fulcrum lie on the same line and the torque is zero. Due to the effect of external force, the tumbler tilts, the hemisphere rolls to one side, and the touch point moves with it, forming a new touch point, that is, forming a new fulcrum. At this time, the line of gravity is not on the same line as the original fulcrum, so a torque forms up; this is the resistance torque. It is due to the formation of resistance torque that resist and stop the interference of external forces. The directions of the resisting torque and the interference torque are exactly the opposite. At the same time, as the tumbler's angle of inclination increases, the offset of the gravity center line also increases, and the magnitude of the resisting torque also increases. When the resisting torque is equal to the interference torque, the tumbler enters a new equilibrium state, a tilting equilibrium state, at which moment the interference of the external force ceases. It can be concluded that after the tumbler is disturbed by external forces, the original balance is destroyed, but a new balance is formed. The tilting toy can continue to maintain a balanced state. Although the balance is different, the nature of the balance remains unchanged. This is dynamic balance. 

3. The stress situation of tumbler recovery state. From the perspective of potential energy, objects with low potential energy are relatively stable, and objects will turn toward low potential energy. When a tumbler toy falls, the tumbler will return to its original position because the base where the gravity center locates is raised and the potential energy is increased when the tumbler falls. From the lever principle, when the tumbler toy falls, the point of gravity is always at the end. No matter where the fulcrum is, although the arm of the base is shorter, but the torque equals to force times arm, tumbler will still go back to original upright state because of the large torque of the base. In addition, the bottom of the tumbler is rounded, and the friction is small, so that the roly-poly toy can easily be returned to its original position. 

Tembler Stress Situation

The Origin of Tumbler Toy

As early as in the matriarchal society of Xi'an Banpo Village, a type of pick-up kettle was discovered. When the kettle is filled with some water, it will lean to one side; when it is full with water, it will automatically stand up, making it very easy to pick up water.

In the pre-Qin period, this kettle evolved into a kind of "drinker." In "Xunzi", Confucius visited the Luzong Gong Temple and saw the "drinker" and asked what it was. The temple watcher replied: This is a device for drinking putting on the right side of a seat. This appliance is clever: When it is empty, it is inverted; when it is filled with moderate wine, it will stand up; while when it is full of wine, it will dump again. After Confucius’s “guide”, descendants put this kind of thing on the right side of the seat to remind themselves that they should be moderate and satisfied. As a result, the term "motto" (座右铭, literally means the appliance on the right side of a seat) appears.

According to the textual research, these kettle, “drinker”, etc. are based on the principle of gravity, which is the predecessors of the tumbler toy.

The Application of Tilting Toy Theory

The theory of tilting toy has been widely used in production and people's life.

The tumbler sandbag is a common exercise equipment. It depends on its iron chassis to stabilize the center of gravity, so that most of the weight is concentrated in a very low position. The upper part is only a very light soft foam or other material. Even if it is subjected to a strong external force, the sandbags will not fall. 

Tembler Sandbag

The 1300-year-old Xi'an Small Wild Goose Pagoda has survived dozens of earthquakes. The Earthquakes recorded in history caused three cracks of the pagoda but it also recombined three times. In particular, the earthquake in 1556 shook it from a full height of 56 meters to now 43 meters with its tower still upright. It is amazing. Why? In the underground of the base of the pagoda (diameter about 60 meters), the depth of the boulders from the edge to the center of pagoda base gradually deepens. The central part lies a few layers of bluestone; the upper pagoda base is piled up with bricks and there is a three meters high base on the ground. Finally, the tower is built on the base on the ground. All these make the tower as stable as a tilting toy. 

Small Wild Goose Pagoda

When the car is designed and manufactured, by increasing the proportion of the chassis to the weight of the entire vehicle body and lowering the car's center of gravity, the car can maintain a balanced state during emergency braking or turning, and avoid crashes, car overturns, and other life-threatening traffic accidents. The tumbler principle improves the handling skill of the car.

In order to increase the stability of objects in life, we often increase the weight of their lower parts, like fan bases, microphone stands, and bus stop signs. In order to lower the center of gravity, the tightrope acrobat must hold a balance bar.

Roly Poly Toy How to Make?

Roly poly egg

Preparation: an egg, a stick, glue, sand or rice, a piece of white paper, scissors, crayons

1. Use the stick to gently poke a small hole at the smaller end of the egg. Be careful otherwise the whole egg will break.

2. Continue to use the stick to stir inside of the egg to break the yolk. Thus, it will be easy to pour out both egg white and yolk.

3. Clean the egg shell with water and wait it to dry naturally or you can help it to dry with hair dryer (be gentle). 

Roly Poly Egg

4. Put some sand or rice into the egg.

5. Keep the egg stand up with the hole on the top. Then, drip in glue to stick the sand or rice on the bottom of the egg. You can also drip in hot wax to fix sand or rice.

6. Cut the white paper into a fan shape and connect the two sides of the fan into a conical shape. A pointed paper hat is done.

7. Stick the hat on the top of the egg with glue and draw the egg and hat with crayons. Finally, an egg roly poly toy is done.

Egg Roly Poly

The shape of the hat and the color of the paper is under your own preference. Thus, you can create your own style of roly poly egg toy. 

All Kinds of Roly Poly Eggs

Roly poly pingpong

Preparation: a table tennis (pingpong), a piece of paper, plasticine, crayons, glue, scissors

1. Remove half of the table tennis with scissors.

2. Fill the bottom of the half table tennis ball with plasticine. Or, fill the whole half table tennis ball.

3. Cut the paper into a fan shape with scissors. The arc length of the fan shape should be slightly longer than the circumference of the table tennis ball.

4. Stick the two sides of the fan shape into a conical shape hat with glue.

5. Adhere the hat to the table tennis ball.

6. Draw on the table tennis ball as well as the paper hat with crayons as you like. 

Roly Poly Pingpong

Compared the two kinds of roly poly toy above both can be easily made, the table tennis roly poly is tougher than roly poly egg. If you want more tougher and beautiful roly poly/tumbler/tilting toy, just get it on online store such as Amazon.

OK, Helen’s share about roly poly toy is that all. Thanks for reading!



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