Scalextric

“Banked curves are stupid”, she said, trigger squeezed to the point that her finger was going numb. She was 4 laps ahead, the lego supports were still holding up and the end was in sight. It was then that I unleashed a new dimension in scaled car racing…the obstacle…

More train travel today led to this observation.

I saw a car wedged sideways in a ditch today. Not just a normal car, but one which was probably 40 years old and had been in that ditch for the majority of its life. Aside from that, it wasn’t just leaning into the ditch, or crashed headlight-first into it, oh no. This car was aligned with its doors against the ditch walls, as if it had been driven along the length of the ditch to this point.

Several thoughts came to mind. Firstly, how did the person who got the car into that ditch then get out? There was no sunroof and no evidence of Mrs. Tiger Woods helping them with her trusty 6-iron. Secondly, and perhaps more obviously, WHY!? Why had someone put what was a perfectly intact car in that position and left it there for the last few decades? Why had no one bothered to remove and restore it?

In a thousand years time, are archaeologists going to be digging for artefacts of this human age and come across a battered Toyota perfectly placed in this ditch? Will they then wonder, as I did, how it had been so neatly positioned in this ditch and come to the chilling conclusion that a giant had put it there? Will they then propose the theory that people in the early years of the 3rd millenium were actually 20 feet tall and this trench was in fact a primitive Scalextric track? Will the bizarre actions of the absconding owner of this car change the entire course of historiography?

Probably not.

The Romans left Pompeii, the Irish will leave clapped-out hatchbacks. And a sense of disproportionate self-importance.

Le vi acercarse corriendo. Al llegar donde yo estaba se freno. Cogió impulso dando tres pasos hacia atrás, y me golpeó con todas sus fuerzas. No temáis, los balones no sienten nada cuando se los golpea, están preparados para ello. De hecho la experiencia fue agradable. Volar, sentir el viento en el cuerpo, ser libre y entonces… volver a caer.

El chico, un niño de unos 7 años, ojos muy abiertos, y pelo negro y rizado, se acercó de nuevo, pero esta vez se quedó a dos metros de distancia. Yo ya no era un balón, había vuelto a cambiar. Giré las ruedas a izquierda y derecha, y abrí la puerta izquierda delantera para coger impulso y darme la vuelta. Entonces vi en el bolsillo de la chaqueta del niño, que me miraba sorprendido, un coche de Scalextric. Traté de huir a través de la hierba, pero las ruedas se me quedaron atrapadas en la tierra y la mano del niño se me echó encima.

Me subió hasta tenerme a la altura de sus ojos y dijo: “Hola”. Yo abrí y cerré la puerta derecha en señal de saludo. “Ahh”, suspiró él, y acto seguido me introdujo en su bolsillo.
Antes de que cerrara la cremallera pude ver dos canicas de cristal y una pegatina en la que salía un coche rojo llamado Rayo McQueen.

Resurrecting toys,
Scaled down cars from many a
Boy’s fondest childhood,
Now a race again thanks to
James May’s wonderful toy show.

A los que sepan italiano no les resultará difícil adivinar que nos venden, “cochecitos”. Ese sería el nombre en español de “Macchienine”, una tienda situada en la Calle Barquillo Nº7 de Madrid, especializada en coches de miniatura, originales y de segunda mano, scalextrics descatalogados y modernos e infinidad de juguetes vinculados al mundo del automóvil. Todo un espectáculo para los ojos de coleccionistas.

El propietario de la tienda es Jose Luis Jiménez, un adicto al mundo del motor. Abrió hace 6 años y desde entonces no ha parado.

Macchine no solo ofrece los productos, que son muchos, que vemos en el interior de la tienda. Acepta encargos a todos los niveles, ya que hay veces que tienen  que recurrir al extranjero para encontrar lo que les han pedido.El perfil del comprador ondea entre hombres de treinta a sesenta años, aunque aseguró que también tiene clientes femeninos.

El precio de los cochecitos va dese los 6 euros hasta los 6000, para los más caprichosos, aunque lo normal en la compra de un juguete antiguo son unos 40.

Si no sabes qué regalarle a tu abuelo, tu padre, tu hermano o tu novio, apuesta a que cualquiera de estas reliquias automovilísticas les encantarán.

It looks 2009 is the year for people I work with to start blogging, and they’re all on Twitter… coincidence? So if you’re looking for a good read, you might like to check them out. Starting with the newest blog…

October 2009

Ed’s World (@ejellard) Off to a flying start with some great home automation with arduino, Home Easy, MQTT and a helping of hackery.

Limboworld’s blog (@jaylimburn) Conducting a scientific experiment in to the value of blogging, so make sure you get as many people to read it as possible! Some good DIY posts to kick things off. (There would have been a few DIY posts here if I’d started this blog before fitting the kitchen!)

September 2009

The World Of Gavin (@gavinwillingham) Definite technology slant with an enjoyable hint of grumpy old man which I’m definitely hoping will continue!

April 2009

Cobweb (@techcobweb)

Some really varied arduino projects in addition to home automation and tweeting cats. While the only circuit I’ve cobbled together recently is sitting in an ice cream tub in the porch, Mike is a master at packaging projects- his scalextric race timer is a work of art!

May 2006 (so blogging way longer than the rest of us!)

Nigel’s blog (@planetf1)

Not as easy to sum up given the number of posts but a distinct focus on technology of various kinds. Probably need to run it through wordle to get a better idea!

The trouble with making lists like this is that I am bound to have missed a few! I’ll just sneakily add more if I have… which reminds me, I was going to make more of an effort with a blogroll at some point soon.

La última carrera del Open de España CM 2009, se ha celebrado el pasado fin de semana en el circuito de Cartagena hasta donde se desplazó el equipo DALOPA TEAM, con su piloto, Luis López de la Cámara, quién tenía un tú a tú ya en la jornada de entrenamientos con el líder Xavier Doménech que marcaba la pole, pero era seguido de un De la Cámara a tan sólo 3 décimas lo de deparaba una jornada de carreras más que interesante. La nota negativa la ponía de nuevo el Bango del segoviano que volvía a fallar tras los últimos fallos en Alcañiz, después de que aparecieran de nuevo los fallos mecánicos, lo que le impedían bajar algo más el tiempo de los cronos y le hacían meterse a boxes sin poder dar más vueltas al trazado cartagenero.

La jornada del domingo amanecía con sol y calor, propio de Cartagena, De la Cámara salía a realizar su cometido de ganar la manga y a esperar el fallo de Doménech. Y así fue, el segoviano lidero la manga de principio estando al frente 4 vueltas, tras las cuales frente el acoso de Doménech, el segoviano decide ser adelantado, liderando el catalán la carrera. A 3 vueltas para el final De la Cámara cambia de estrategia y adelanta al del equipo Monlau y se sitúa líder de la carrera, dando el todo por el todo. A escasas dos curvas del final de carrera, el Bango de De la Cámara de nuevo falla no engranando la marcha y teniendo que terminar el segoviano la carrera, por lo que es adelantado por  Doménech, que ganaba la carrera, Cirre y Martínez que hacían segundo y tercero respectivamente, mientras que el segoviano hacía una cuarta posición que le dejaba un muy mal sabor de boca tras haber estado liderando la carrera.

En la segunda manga, el segoviano, tras los problemas mecánicos decidía no salir, dado que la 2ª plaza de la general del campeonato la tenía ya matemáticamente, junto con algún dolor que le quedaba de la anterior prueba en Alcañiz, le hacían ver la carrera desde boxes y vio de nuevo una victoria de Doménech que le afianzaba más en el liderato.

Tras esta carrera el campeonato se decidía y Doménech tomaba el testigo de García, ganador del campeonato del 2008, proclamándose vencedor, con un muy competitivo De la Cámara en segunda plaza y un David García tercero, conformaron el pódium de la general final del Open de España CM 2009.

CLASIFICACIÓN CARTAGENA OPEN ESPAÑA CM

Carrera 1
1. Xavier Doménech, 10 vueltas.
2. Enrique Cirre, a 1.764 .
3. Raúl Martínez, a 7.609.
4. Luis López de la Cámara, a 22.033.
5. Fernando Servillera, a 40.221.

Carrera 2
1. Xavier Doménech, 10 vueltas.
2. Raúl Martínez, a 2.427.
3. Joan Josep Forés, a 11.116.
4. Fernando Servillera, a 12.556.
5. Enrique Cirre, a 12.785.

GENERAL FINAL OPEN ESPAÑA CM 2009

1º Xavier Domenech…265 puntos

2º Luis López de la Cámara … 198 puntos

3º David García … 156 puntos

Descarga la general final en PDF: Pincha aquí

NOTICIA PUBLICADA O RELACIONADA EN

RevistaMotorSegovia

Auto Sprint

Norte de Castilla

Hoy me estreno en WordPress y lo hago para ir presentando una de mis pasiones en estas páginas: el slot, como dicen ahora los modernos, el scalextric de toda la vida.Efectivamente, el scalextric de nuestra infancia evolucionó hasta el slot de hoy en día, con multitud de fabricantes, pero también con nuevas marcas de coches, modelos y recreaciones épicas, como son las que pretendo traer a estas páginas. La aparición de fabricantes como Fly o Team Slot presentó modelos inéditos, míticos, medio artesanos. Hoy en día, después de algunos años recopilando información y de afición al motor, especialmente al mundo de los rallyes, cuento con una pequeña colección que comenzó hace más de 20 años con un BMW M1 y el Lancia Stratos que venían en la caja con el circuito más básico, que vino a ser el mejor regalo de Reyes que jamás he tenido (la ilusión con la que un niño espera un regalo no se puede comparar a la que un adulto puede tener). El regalo vino por parte de mi hermana, por cierto.

Poco después de recibir este regalo, ahorré y ahorré hasta conseguir comprar en 1987 un Ford RS200, precioso, que todavía conservo.

Formula 1 Go Go Go!!! – Childrens book
"F1: Go, Go, Go!" is the perfect introduction to the world of Formula 1 motor racing, for many the world’s most exciting sport. Each spread covers a different aspect of motor racing, from the cars and the drivers to the track and the garage, as well the technical side and a brief history of the sport….

Goodwood Festival of Speed 2009 (DVD)
Revel in the action from this mid-summer motor sport spectacular, which features a huge number of celebrated drivers and riders. Six contemporary Formula 1 teams, including McLaren-Mercedes, Ferrari and BMW Sauber, tackle the Goodwood hillclimb with shrieking engines and smoking tyres….

McLaren, The Cars 1964-2008 (2nd Edition)
The definitive book on McLaren cars illustrating every car ever produced.
The McLaren marque has an illustrious history spanning five decades at the forefront of both motor racing and road car design. This stunning book by award-winning publisher Coterie Press is, without doubt, one of the greatest-ever titles on a single marque produced by an independent publisher….

Scalextric (Shire Library)

SlotCarDuino : Create a lap timing system. Minutes, Seconds, tenths of a second to be displayed with 7-segment LED digits. Race starter lights being an optional extra.

Here’s how it turned out :

Read more after the break…

Why ?

For Christmas 2009, as part of the fund-raising activities, the local school holds a fair in which games are played, gifts purchased, face-painting, tumbola … etc. You must know the thing. Lots of noise, kids spending pocket-money on sweets … etc. Overall, it’s a fairly-large fund-raiser for things like extra musical instruments, or extra nice-to-have facilities at the school.

Why write about this here ? Well, Mrs techcobweb and I have been asked to create a game based on slot-car racing. Set up a track, charge for a go racing the cars around our track. The idea is to time the laps, and record “top-gear style” the best times. Best lap time from 3 laps or so. Prizes for the best in age-range (keys stage 1, key stage 2 and “the rest”).

The hope is that competition to be the best will spur people to play multiple times to get their lap time higher up on the score-board, thus earning the school association more cash.

I want to accurately time laps, so I need something cool to do it. I didn’t want to buy any commercially-available timing unit specifically designed for the purpose, that’s too easy, no fun at all, and I wouldn’t learn anything as a result.

Instead, I thought I’d use it as another excuse to learn some more about simple electronics.

First thing, make some decisions to limit the scope of the project :

• I’d ignore the “digital” scalextric system. We would not allow cars to switch lanes, so I only need to detect whether a car passes in a certain lane, rather than which car passed in which lane.
• I’d use an infra-red beam, mounted vertically,  which is broken by a car passing the finish-line to detect the start/end of laps.
• I’d use an arduino board as the microprocessor (or freeduino in this case, as I had one already).

Step 1 : Infra-red beam breakage

I got hold of a simple IR detector, and IR-emitting LED. Put a current through the detector, and read the voltage it lets through using analogRead() on the arduino, and you can tell if the IR light beam is intact or not.

Tip : You can’t see an IR beam with the naked eye, but if you use your mobile camera, where you can see a preview of what you’re pointing at, you can see it.

The IR emitters need to be always-on. So they only need a ground and +5v connection, and a resistor. I used a 55ohm resistor for this, safe enough I hope given the data sheet for the emitters.

These are mounted in a “gantry” above the track surface.

The track I used was one piece from the 2-piece pack of track interchange. It seems that scalextric track changed from the old system to the new system of connecting stretches of track together about 4 years ago. My thinking was that if I did the electronics timers in one of these pieces, then it can be connected to the old or the new track systems.

IR detectors are mounted on a small piece of vero board beneath holes cut into the track surface. I was surprised how soft the track was to cut, so I could do it easily with a simple craft knife.

The detector cable from the IR sensor plugs into an analog pin on the arduino. High readings when there is lots of IR light around, low when the car passes bye. Of course, everything is doubled-up to allow timing for two lanes of racing traffic. Software wise, I found that a single reading is not highly reliable, so I ended up taking the last 3 readings and averaging them to get the value to use.

Step 2 :Race starter lights

These are bi-color red-green LEDs, 2 anodes (one for each colour), and a common cathode. 2 wires connect these to digital pins on the arduino so they can be switched red, green or off on demand.

The lights themselves are then mounted in the same gantry ducting that houses the IR-beam emitters.

Step 3 : LED segments showing the timers

The “arduino playground” has lots written about how to control 7-segment LEDs. After reading these, it looked like Maxim 7219 chips would do what I wanted. Couldn’t find any suppliers except RS Components. They have fairly high delivery rates, but as I couldn’t find that part anywhere else there was little choice.

The LEDs themselves and all other parts came from BitsBox, an excellent site which only charges £1.50 per order.

Laying out a breadboard circuit using the 7219 chip, and 8 digits of 7-segment LEDs wasn’t easy. It took nearly 2 hours to cut all the wire and “weave” it together. By far the most complex things I’ve done electronically so far. Anyway, it seemed to work. I used a simple sketch to show the time since the board was last reset.

This amount of wires took 2 hours to lay out neatly on the breadboard. More like sewing than anything I’ve done since I made a cushion cover at school.

Step 4 : Software, controlling inputs and outputs

Now things are getting exciting. Connecting together the input sensors with the output starter-lights on the gantry and the two 4-digit timers was straightforward. I added a switch to control the selection of “numbers of laps”, “number of players”, and “which lane if there is only one player”, then I needed to write some code to control it all.

As I’m not using interrupts to latch the detection of a broken beam, I need all the code to be non-blocking. The libraries available on the arduino site contain Finite State Machine, and Scheduler, LedControl, Button and LED, all of which are useful for the programming.

After finding a bug in the FSM (Finite State Machine) library I was delighted when the author provided a fix overnight ! (Thanks Alexander Brevig).

Step 5 : Switches and software control

• I opted for 3 switches. Reset (to reset the arduino), Select and Mode.
• The reset switch needs to connected to the Reset line at one end, and the ground at the other. Couldn’t find that written anywhere in the arduino forums. Maybe it’s just obvious to most, but it wasn’t to me, so took some experimenting.
• The other two switches are mounted on a piece of wood, connected to +5 via a 20kOhm resistor at one end, with the connection to the input pin to the arduino at that end of the switch, with ground on the other pole of the switch.
• ie: A pull-up resistor. Someone said that a 20k creates less power drain than a 10k, so I thought I’d try that.
• When the software uses this, it also enables the in-built 20k resistor in the arduino hardware.
• Both the Select and Mode switches are de-bounced using the Button library.

Step 6 : Complete the software

At this point, I had little sketches to exercise all the small pieces of the solution. Now it’s time to pull it all together.

I created a state machine, which had a few states :

1. Setup number of laps state

• Select button adds a lap to the lap count, wrapps from 9 to 1.
• Mode button moves to state 2.

2. Setup number of players and lane used state

• Select button toggles between:
  - 2 players, both laps
  - 1 player, left lap
  - 1 player, right lap.
• Mode button switches to state 3

3. Start race mode

• Flash the red starter-light LED on for a second, then off. for a second. Display “3″ on all digits of all timers.
• Do it again, using a “2″
• Do it again, using a “1″
• Blank the timer screens
• Put the green “go” lights on.
• Schedule an event to turn the green light off a bit later, regardless of our state.
• Move to state 4.

4. Timing the race.

• Collect lap-times for each lane.
• When all lanes in use for this race has finished, move to state 5

5. Display the best lap time above each lane in use. Flash this on-off with a second frequency, so the user knows it’s the overall best lap time, rather than just the last one.

• Mode button moves to state 1, so the whole race can start again.

So after a while getting this code nearly right, I was able to throw a post-it note through each lane to pretend that a car was passing over the lane.

Cool.

Here is the arduino sketch : scalextric_lap_timer_sketch_v1t

Step 7 : First complete physical fitting

• Soldering together a “timer gantry”. I found a piece of plastic “cable shield” was once again useful here. I could just about get a row of LED digits within the channel inside the shielding. It’s sticky-backed, so could easily be added to the original lighting gantry.
  
• Creating the switch frame, soldering the wires to the central circuit board.
• Soldering-together the central circuit-board, which collects all/most of the wires from the board.
  
• Fasten the arduino to the board, using risers which accept a screw at both ends.
• Attach the battery to the board, using a Velcro pad. Solder the batter connector to a power plug. (2.2mm, +ve is central terminal).
  

Step 8 : Hiding the gawp

Add some structure to fill-out the board a bit

Decorate with some “stone wall” features from a previous “plaster mould” project

Cover the electronics kit in a plastic bag for protection of what’s coming up…

Get some raw materials together :

office shreddings, placed on top of the structure, on which strips Mod-rock plaster is placed.

Paint matt black :

Then “dry brush” with grey, then white :

Then add some grassy bits :

Finished !

Parts List :

• 3 x switches
• 4 x 3mm red LEDs
• 1 x ??uj capacitor
• 1 x ??nj capacitor
• 1 x maxim 7219 c?? chip
• 1 x 16-pin integrated circuit mount
• 1 x 8-pin integrated circuit mount
• 2 x IR emitters
• 2 x IR receivers
• 1 x freeduino
• 2-3m wire
• 10cm x 12cm vero board to cut up
• 1 x 2.2mm power jack
• 60mm of cable ducting
• oddments of wood
• 30cm x 30cm hardboard base
• a dozen or so screws
• wood glue
• plaster

Testing

Someone asked me “how do you know it’ll detect actual cars given that you’ve never hooked it up to a track before”. Well, I wrote a test program which counts how many sensor readings are taken as an object passed over the sensors. Then it got reported over serial. I found I could flick a post-it note through the gantry and have sixty readings as it flew past. Flicking a pencil as fast as I could (width-wise) registered a “broken beam” for 10 readings. So I figured as a car was longer, it would register as breaking the beam for much longer.

I finally got someone to come over and set some track up. A slot car running at full-speed (via a very long straight) registered the beam as being broken for 140 readings.

So I now know it works, and will not be too slow for a car to pass through without being detected.

Battery Consumption

It doesn’t seem to run for long with a standard 9v battery, as wierd things start to happen (lanes don’t register beam breakage). It’s fine to start with, but when the battery voltage drops to 7.2v the display driver stops working. I’ll use a wall-plug on the day I think, which isn’t a problem, as the scalextric needs a plug anyway.

Conclusions

204 solder joints. Whew !

Estimated cost of around £38. Which is more expensive than the official £26 retail version, but loads better than a small LCD screen, and this one does exactly what we want, and doesn’t look “plastic”…etc.

I enjoyed the hardware debugging phase a fair bit. Learned a bit more about capacitors, wiring layout, physical mounting.

The code I wrote is a mess. Need to get back into C++ to make it more object-oriented instead of using arrays.

Great fun building it.

I’ll update this post with feedback from when it gets used for real.

Post-script : How did it work on the actual event ?

So December came, and the weekend of the school fair arrived. Up fresh and early, with a car full of borrowed track we headed to the school. (No pictures as I didn’t think to get many, and I don’t want to show kids’ faces without permission..etc).

We weren’t short of helpers putting the track together. All the over-30’s were getting misty-eyed at the sight of the old-style cars. All the youngsters just wanted to see the biggest track most of them had ever had a race on.

All the help was rewarded with more “test laps” than absolutely necessary. The track itself had about a 10-second lap time with new magnet-enabled, can hardly drive them too fast off the corners, about 20 seconds with older non-magnet cars. Given that we had a selection of borrowed cars available, I tried them all. I found that the new cars are really dull/boring. They don’t come off easily enough. Completing a lap without skidding off wasn’t the challenge I remember from my 10-year-old days. I tried all the cars from the vintage mini, audi quatro, porche 9-11 and some tyrell F1 car. The most fun was had with these older cars. Get the speed just right, and the back would swing-out and you could “drift” around the corners, power-sliding all the way.

Then the crowds arrived.

It wasn’t long before I was grateful for the new cars. Because they didn’t come off the track very often we didn’t need a legion of helpers to recover cars from crash sites.

Practical point : We should have put a lower-age limit on the stand. When kids too small to understand the difference between “full-on” and “gently squeezed” had the controls every corner was accident-city. Putting crash barrier on the outside of all of the corners really paid off. Another thing we did was to race red and blue cars. We put red/blue stickers around the track so helpers could tell which lane to put cars onto when they came off. This is sometimes confusing, and can lead to situations where 2 cars are on the same lane or the wrong car passing under the gantry in the wrong lane (giving that lane owner a really great time!).

The “driver registration” process on the stand took ages. If anyone does this where the budget is higher, get yourself some RFID detector to register your driver with the machine. Sometimes the track was idle while we took driver details. Eventually we got it sorted.

Overall, the timer worked well. Some glitches (there must be some bugs still left in the code), but overall it worked.

The stall required loads of effort to keep it running, so it was really hard work continuously. As a result I was glad when the call went out to clear up.

I have no idea how much money was made. Not much. Lucky if we covered the cost of the prizes for “best lap time in age-group”. But it was hugely fun, and kids (pre-teens and 30+’s alike) said what a great success it was.

I’ve since been blamed for several kids demanding slot-car sets for Christmas. Especially with the James May “toy stories” episode on slot-cars nearly coinciding with the event. Shame none of them will get a lap timer like this !

Whew !  Wonder what we’ll need for the next event !

James May se hizo famoso por ser parte del trío fantástico de presentadores de Top Gear, pero hay más James May después de Top Gear. Sucede que el también llamado “Captain Slow” tiene un programa llamado James May´s toy stories que se dedica a hacer tontería y media con juguetes. En esta ocasión se propuso hacer la pista de Scalextric más larga de la historia y con la ayuda de muchos voluntarios lo logró. El asunto mide 4.8 km de largo y el coche eléctrico tarda más de dos horas en dar la vuelta. Aplausos desde aquí para el “Captain Slow”.

Great things are afoot. Magnificent things. They’re hiding behind a mask of silliness, but don’t be fooled—they’re nothing less than magical.

Out there in that wonderful place they call the U.K., a guy with really bad hair and only slightly better fashion sense is changing the world. Through toys.

I kid you not. This gentleman’s name is instantly recognizable throughout Britain—and most of the rest of the world—and, er, a little less so Stateside. (Yeah, as usual, we’re behind the times.) He’s James May, a “television presenter,” most famous for being the most level-headed of the over-the-top triumvirate that hosts the ridiculously popular “car show,” Top Gear. (I’ve mentioned it before in my blog. For a reason. It’s one of the best shows on television. So go watch it.)

He also does side projects for the BBC, all of which are must-see TV. In the past several years, Mr. May has brought his subtle yet cockeyed sense of humor and honeyed baritone to shows on the moon landings, wine (and beer), inventions and innovations, and toys. Yeah. Toys.

Several years ago he did a show called James May’s Top Toys and another called My Sister’s Top Toys, where he took a little walk down memory lane and reexamined the toys of his youth. And he finally got to do what he always wanted to with them—drop Action Man (a British G.I. Joe) out of a helicopter to see if the danged parachute would ever actually work (it did), shoot a model of the Bismarck with a toy rifle (and a magnificent sinking it was), and blow up his sister’s dumb plastic toy treehouse (seemed to be very satisfying).

And then Mr. May decided to turn it up to 11. His new show is called James May’s Toy Stories. It will air in Britain sometime in September…and here in America around…oh, half past never. (I thank the gods for YouTube and other nefarious Interweb methods for getting decent television here in the Land of Endless Reality Shows.)

Anyway, call them…really big toy stories. Mr. May’s idea was to take your garden-variety creative-type stuff, like Plasticine (as a frame of reference for us Americans, it’s something like Play-Doh that never dries out) and Lego, and go big, by making a life-size garden (that’s the Plasticine). Or a life-size house (that’s the Lego).

He’s been doing these projects all summer. It started with a life-size model airplane. That was followed up by a Meccano (metal Tinker Toy-type stuff) bridge over a canal in Liverpool—that he actually walked across; the garden, which was a breathtakingly color-splashed bit of whimsy that won the people’s choice award at the usually unbelievably snobby Chelsea Flower Show; a Scalextric (slot-car) recreation of the route of a long-gone racetrack; the longest toy train track (10 miles) on an old railway route between two towns in Devon; and the Lego house (still under construction) that he’s going to live in for a couple of days.

Fun? Oh yeah. I’m looking forward to watching the pirated videos of it (yeah, I said pirated videos—come and get me, coppers!) But there’s something else to all of this.

When Mr. May and his crew first conceived of the idea for his Toy Stories show, he said he wanted to get kids and their parents off their behinds, away from the video games and the TV, and truly playing, creating things with their imaginations, again.

Admirable. But of course kids and their parents would watch the show, think “that’s nice” and then go play video games, right?

Well, Mr. May put his ideas into…er, play (sorry) from the get-go. Instead of dragging an entire staff of paid BBC folk off to the far corners of Britain to create these toy wonders, he did something better.

He asked kids—and their parents—to participate. He put out the call. First to make Plasticine tulips for the garden. Then to make Lego bricks that would soon be the walls of the Lego house. Then to lay the slot-car track—one that ran through the kids’ neighborhoods and even yards. Then to lay the train track and monitor the train traveling from station to station. And they came. Thousands of them—so many for the Lego house that the number of people they could accommodate at the brick-making tables was maxed out by early morning.

And what did the kids and their parents say as they gleefully constructed brilliantly colored bricks, their fingers cramping on the unforgiving plastic? “There should be more things like this.”

They loved it. They ate it up and looked for more.

Now, this is great publicity, right? Not to mention cheap (okay, unpaid) labor. Plus the dude has already got his name in the Guinness Book of World Records for getting these suckers to build the longest Scalextric track (nearly 3 miles) and might have another world record on his hands for the longest end-to-end model railway track (10 miles) that other people built. Clever, eh? And a real money maker. Wink wink; rub hands together as only a network television executive with dollar signs—er, make that pound signs—for pupils could.

I could be cynical and leave it there. But I won’t. Because I think something bigger’s going on with all of this. I am going to go out on a limb and say that this scruffy, unassuming middle-aged individual (I can say that—we’re about the same age) who seems to be desperately in need of some decent hair product and a fashion consultant is playing the fool, but in reality he is doing nothing less than changing the world.

Yes, you read right. One man and his toys. Changing the world. For the better. Don’t believe me? Think about this: While way too much time is taken up on television with pointless fiction and even more pointless reality crap that shows us just how reprehensible our “fellow man” can be, Mr. May is actually asking us to be better people—and we don’t even have to open a vein or serve at a soup kitchen.

He’s onto something, this wily Mr. May. Because opening ourselves up to joy…to choosing to create something with our imaginations…to remember what it’s like to truly play…and encourage our children to do the same (along with us, no less)…isn’t that a way to remember what we really should be doing with our lives?

Yeah, you gotta watch those quiet ones in loud-patterned flowered shirts. They fly under the radar, but then—bam!—they hit you in the heart and soul with the meaning of life.

And before you know it, you’re giggling over a pile of Legos with your kid. What a way to go.

Sin duda alguna uno de los elementos más unidos a nosotros desde que nacemos son los juguetes, a los cuales les dedicamos buena parte de nuestra infancia. Dicen los psicólogos que los juegos infantiles marcan parte de nuestro perfil psicológico y moldean una parte de la personalidad, aunque también he leído que como ésta ya viene dada en parte por la genética, es más bien ella la que nos inclina hacia unos juguetes u otros. Dios mío, donde quedaron desde los sonajeros, al cubo y la pala de la playa, los muñecos, los “cacharros” a pilas que ponían de los nervios a mis mayores, los clics de playmobil, los coches teledirigidos, los scalextrics (éste último si lo se, en calle los Ficus), mi primera bicicleta, mi primera pelota ( y las infinitas horas con mi abuelo), los juegos de mesa……y así hasta el infinito y más allá.

Hoy en día los juguetes han sido monopolizados por las consolas y todos sabemos que, llegados a una edad, la avanzada tecnología corre más que nuestra capacidad de adaptación, por lo que los padres regalan a sus hijos lo que no tuvieron tiempo cósmico de disfrutar, por eso aprovechan la excusa de los niños para sentarse al otro extremo del cable y compensarse, en vez de dedicarse a los juegos de mayores, también llamados hobbies. Yo también lo haré, supongo, así que no es cuestión de hacer mucha sangre.

En estos días que transcurren, el destino ha puesto en mis manos (nunca mejor dicho), lo que se ha convirtiendo sin remedio en mi juguete favorito a mis treinta y tantos, al menos por un tiempo, que espero que sea el más corto posible. Si tuviera que describirlo sin fotos para haceros una idea, tendría que describirlo como un artefacto de híbrido diseño a medio camino entre una máquina sadomasoquista de humillación sexual (o de placer según quién lo “disfrute”) y otra máquina de tortura física de las muchas que tuvieron el ingenio de inventar los amigos de la Santa Inquisición para infligir un sufrimiento que debía andar entre lo superlativo y lo inefable…siempre me ha parecido curioso la aplicación de la santidad a esta institución. Un vez tuve la oportunidad de ver, con mi amigo David Mérida hace ya unos pocos de años…bastantes, una exposición de mecanismos y máquinas de tortura utilizados por la Santa Inquisición, y os puedo asegurar que el uso de esos inventos estaba bastante lejos de los caminos que Jesús y el Dios Padre Altísimo enseñaron a los cristianos para alcanzar la santidad, y cada vez que me acuerdo de algunos se me pone la piel de gallina.

Retomando el tema de mi nuevo juguetito, en apariencia igual de imponente pero en la práctica mucho más pedagógico, he de decir que gracias a él, y a pesar del dolor, partes de mi cuerpo vuelven a conseguir logros que a veces dudé. Por suerte, no tenéis que quedaros con la duda y podéis ver la foto un poco más abajo. Si amigos, es ahí donde practico parte de mi rehabilitación y un amplio catálogo de caras y aspavientos de sufrimiento humano soportable. Sin duda, después de semana y media, soy de los que menos sufre en la sala. Es duro ver la cruda realidad de las cosas que le ocurren en un hospital a las personas, y como te puede cambiar la vida en un segundo de desgracia. Sirvan estas palabras perdidas en el ciberespacio, como pequeño homenaje a todas las personas que sufren cualquier tipo de enfermedad en general, y más concretamente a todos aquellos que por cualquier causa pasan por una dura rehabilitación, y en particular a las personas del Hospital Marítimo de Torremolinos (un lugar especial por muchos motivos en mi vida). Yo a pesar de todo, me siento afortunado porque poco a poco voy recuperando mi brazo derecho sin cicatrices, sin deformaciones, sin amputaciones y espero pronto poder sonreír recordándolo…todo gracias a mi familia y amigos (sobre todo a mi madre, como siempre) y al equipo médico y de fisioterapeutas, sobre todo a Juan Luís que sabe cómo y dónde apretar y a Fernando, que aparte de recuperar articulaciones te hace recuperar la sonrisa y el ánimo aunque no quieras….y por supuesto a mi juguete favorito.

P.D.: incluyo también otro elemento importante en mi recuperación, las pelotas de mi vecino y amigo José Carlos, de tanto tocarlas mis dedos empezaron a funcionar otra vez. Sirva el lápiz como medida de referencia. Gracias por ellas compañero.

Mi juguete favorito

Las pelotas de José Carlos

Top Gear presenter James May is at it again! After first building a house out of Lego Bricks he has set his sights higher, and is attempting to adapt the famous banked track at Brooklands, Weybridge into the worlds longest Scalextric track.

May will use 20,000 separate sections of track to match the original 2.75 mile (4.42km) circuit and beat the current record of 1.59 miles (2.56km).

Brooklands, in Weybridge, closed in 1939 and the track will have to cross a river and roads to complete a circuit.

Brooklands was the world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit.

It opened on 17 June 1907 and closed at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, when the aerodrome was requisitioned by the government and was devoted to the production of Vickers and Hawker aircraft including the Hurricane fighter plane and the Wellington Bomber.

It had two huge banked sections nearly 30ft (9m) high and cost £150,000 to build – a massive sum in those days.

[via BBC NEWS | UK | England | Surrey | May to attempt Scalextric record.]

Blancmange eater

Today I met Michael Caine. I passed him near the statue. He looked at me, I looked at him; the space between our eyes raining silver sparks on passers by. After what was no more than a split second, I went to find my seat, and he his. He ate strawberry blancmange whist I read a book – boy, his blancmange looked tasty, but my book which rich with amphiboly so I was happy.

I wonder what he’s thinking right now. I wonder if he’s wondering what I’m thinking. Probably not. I bet he’s on a yacht in Corsica playing host to a gaggle of minarets and baubles.

I bet he thinks I’m just going to be sat at home all night eating ravioli out of a tin then playing Scalextric until I fall asleep in my own faeces. Well, Mr Caine, you are wrong, but not by far.

That’s one more social situation I won today. Winning at life.

La Obra Social de Caja Círculo de Burgos ha editado el libro Cien años jugando (1870-1970) de José Antonio Quiroga de Paz con motivo de la exposición de juguetes de la Colección Quiroga-Monte que organizó en su sala de exposiciones Círculo Central (23 de abril-12 de julio de 2009), una amplia muestra de una de las más prestigiosas colecciones de juguetes de España. En este blog ya dimos cuenta de la importancia de la Colección Quiroga-Monte en una entrada del mes de diciembre del año pasado (ver).

Cien años jugando (1870-1970) pretende, en palabras de su autor, «hacer un ameno recorrido por la historia reciente de España a través de sus juegos y juguetes, pues estos objetos se encuentran estrechamente vinculados a los cambios sociales, económicos, culturales y políticos de su época, y son, en consecuencia, un fiel reflejo de las mentalidades, los avances científicos y los cambios tecnológicos de cada momento».

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[Ampliar imagen] Aunque la mayor parte del libro la ocupa el catálogo de los juguetes seleccionados para la exposición, con predominio de las imágenes acompañadas de concisos epígrafes explicativos, merece la pena leer la introducción de las primeras páginas en las que José Antonio resume «el período que abarca el juguete industrial en España, consignando los hechos más destacados que afectaron a este sector de las artes industriales entre 1870 a 1970» en un breve recorrido organizado cronológicamente: «Los inicios (1870-1900)»,«La consolidación de las fábricas jugueteras (1900-1920)», «El apogeo del juguete español (1920-1936)», «El juguete, la guerra civil y la posguerra (1936-1949)» y «La irrupción del plástico y el desarrollismo (1949-1970)». 

[Ampliar imagen] Y dado que la exposición ha sido programada por Caja Círculo de Burgos, coincidiendo con su centenario, José Antonio Quiroga ha querido rendir por tal motivo un pequeño homenaje a los editores burgaleses Saturnino Calleja y Santiago Rodríguez, «fundadores de sendas editoriales homónimas, cuyos trabajos dedicados al mundo infantil figuraron entre los más importantes de España e Hispanoamérica», y al pintor y dibujante Evaristo Barrio, que «colaboró con las dos casas editoras aludidas, ilustrando algunos de los famosos cuentos infantiles que éstas publicaron». 

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[Ampliar imagen] El catálogo de piezas expuestas lo abre este Rey Mago de los años cincuenta, de cartón piedra policromado y madera, 53 × 15 × 73 cm y fabricante desconocido.

«Aunque no pertenece estrictamente al ámbito de los juguetes, esta pieza precedía y auguraba la llegada de éstos. Su presencia era habitual durante las Navidades en comercios y almacenes de las ciudades españolas. Consiste en una figura de Rey Mago en relieve y de medio cuerpo, que sujeta con ambas manos el buzón real para que los niños depositaran allí sus cartas con las peticiones de los regalos. Estos sencillos muñecos huecos se fabricaban asimismo de cuerpo entero e incluso con cabezas postizas intercambiables y una sola figura para poder representar a los distintos Reyes».

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[Hacer click en cada imagen para ampliar] «¡Arre caballito!» es el segundo capítulo del catálogo. En él se reproducen diferentes piezas de caballos de hojalata, madera policromada o cartón piedra, fabricados entre 1902, el año del más antiguo, y los años cincuenta.

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[Ampliar imagen] Un triciclo de los años cincuenta fabricado en Denia (Alicante) de madera pintada con plantilla, hierro y goma (62,50 × 30 × 53,5 cm).

«Lleva pintada una escena en su sillín y conserva adherida en esa misma parte la etiqueta original para su comercialización. En los años en que se fabricó, el caucho empezó a incorporarse a las ruedas de estos vehículos infantiles, al igual que a las de otros muchos juguetes».

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[Ampliar imagen] Una de las piezas mas importantes de la Colección Quiroga-Monte es el Tren de madera (madera pintada a mano, 63 × 6,2 × 7,8 cm, 1918) diseñado por Joaquín Torres-García.

«El artista, durante una época de su vida, diseño y realizó juguetes de madera didácticos, desmontables y en ocasiones dotados de movimiento, siguiendo las tendencias más avanzadas de la época, características que pueden aplicarse a este ejemplar. La fábrica que producía los juguetes sufrió un incendio y los escasos ejemplares que se conservan son piezas muy deseadas por coleccionistas privados y públicos de todo el mundo».

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[Ampliar imagen] No podían faltar en esta colección los tranvías, entre los que se encuentra el más grande de todos los comercializados en la historia de la juguetería española, el fabricado por Rico (Ibi-Alicante) en 1930, de hojalata litografiada.

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[Hacer click en cada imagen para ampliar] Tres ejemplos de las páginas dedicadas a los coches y camiones.

Los coches de construcción, los bólidos, ambulancias, Auto Biscuter de pedales (c. 1958, Viuda de José Simó), Seat 600 (años sesenta, Sanchís), Scalextric (1966-1980, Exin), Ford Galaxie Los ye-yes (c. 1965, Rico), etcétera, y los camiones Campsa (c. 1930, Rico) y Pegaso constituyen una parte importante, en cantidad y calidad, de la Colección Quiroga-Monte. 

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[Hacer click en cada imagen para ampliar] Tampoco podían faltar las motos, motocicletas, motos Vespa y motoristas. Entre ellas la Moto tuf-tuf (1934, Payá), una pieza muy codiciada por los coleccionistas, que sirvió de motivo para el diseño de la cubierta y sobrecubierta del libro que se reproduce en la apertura de esta entrada.

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[Ampliar imagen] Y por mar el Trasatlántico (1931, Payá), el Buque España con dos aviones (1940, Rico), la Canoa pof-pof (c. 1935, Payá).

[Ampliar imagen] Por aire, Avión con arrastre (c. 1930, Rico), Autogiro (c. 1930, Rico) y Aeroplano (c. 1945, Payá).

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[Hacer click en cada imagen para ampliar] En el libro destacan los capítulos dedicados al mundo de las muñecas. Especialmente la Mariquita Pérez (Florido) en todas sus variedades y épocas. También, Gisela (Industrias Prisma), Cayetana (1946, Isidro Rico Miralles), Nancy (1968, Famosa), Mari Pepa Mendoza (1942, Pedro Gros), las Peponas republicana y nacionalista (1932 y 1937)…

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[Hacer click en cada imagen para ampliar] «¡Que empiece ya la función!» (título del capítulo 19) con el Juego de «football» (años veinte), de Borrás; los payasos, perros, monos, elefantes y malabaristas circenses de Payá; el Tobogán (1929) y Tiovivo (1940), también de Payá.

Y que la función continúe con Cine Nic y Cine Rai sonoros, teatro infantil animado, Magia Borrás (años cincuenta), Piruetas (1953, Enrique Borrás), etcétera. Y después a tocar el Tambor (c. 1935, Payá) y la Pandereta (años veinte). O jugar al «tiro porque me toca» con el Dominó cómico (1902, Agapito Borrás), Juegos reunidos Borrás (años cuarenta), Juego de la oca…. que se reproducen en otras páginas.

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[Ampliar imagen] ¡Cuántos recordarán los Madelman de los años sesenta y setenta!

[Ampliar imagen] Acción y guerra con el Tanque (1930, Rico), los Indios y vaqueros (años cuarenta, Pech Hermanos) y los Guerreros Kukuanas (1972, Esjusa).

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[Hacer click en cada imagen para ampliar] Y en el mundo de la fantasía infantil tampoco podían faltar los cuentos, historietas para niños y niñas, tebeos de aventuras, álbumes y cromos infantiles.

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• Cien años jugando (1870-1970)
• Autor: José Antonio Quiroga de Paz (Colección Quiroga-Monte)
• Fotografías: Ornia Fotografía
• ISBN: 978-84-89805-31-6
• 2009
• 24 x 30 cm, 144 páginas.
• 1.000 ejemplares.
• Edita: Caja Círculo Obra Social  ⁄ Tel: 947 288 200
• Información: joseantonio@quirogamonte.com  ⁄  Tel.: 652 956 239