Inducted Year: 2009
In the 1960s, designers at Louis Marx & Co., took apart a tricycle, mixed up the parts, and reassembled them into an upside down trike that handled like a race car. The new kind of trike owed its novelty and high performance to its design. On old steel tricycles, the rider perched on a seat above the drive wheel—and pitched over on sharp turns. And traditional tricycles did not have much speed. But the Big Wheel rode only a […]
Ball
Inducted Year: 2009
Rolling, throwing, kicking, catching, bouncing, and batting. The ball is nearly as old as civilization itself. History abounds with stories and evidence of ball play. The ancient Mesoamericans played ball in elaborately constructed ball courts. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods (1932), Laura and Mary Ingalls played ball with an inflated pig’s bladder. Ancient Greek legends referred to ball play in Odysseus (Od.vi.100), and songwriters Norworth and Tilzer scored a hit with 1908’s “Take […]
Nintendo Game Boy
Inducted Year: 2009
No video game platform did more to put gamers “on the go” than Nintendo Game Boy. And go they did—bringing their gaming experience to school, to summer camp, and to the back seat of the family automobile. Over the past three decades, Game Boy has become synonymous with portable gaming fun.
Following the enormous success of their NES home console, Nintendo launched Game Boy in 1989 and the system became an instant hit. The secret to Game Boy’s success […]