Have You Ever Seen A Hooey Stick?

For the past year or so Harold has been playing around with building old timey toys out of wood.  One of the things he made was a "hooey stick".  This old fashioned toy is made out of two sticks, one of them has grooves on it, and a small propeller on the end.  By rubbing one stick against the other you make the propeller turn.   You can change direction of the propeller by how you hold the stick.  See the photo below:

This is a hooey stick.  Sometimes it is called a "gee-haw" stick or a "whammy doodle".   The secret to turning the propeller on the end is how you hold the smaller stick.   If you have your forefinger rub against the side of the stick, it turns clockwise.  If you have your thumb rub against the side of the stick, it turns counter-clockwise.   Most people don't realize that you are holding the stick a certain way, so it looks like the propeller just turns directions "by magic"!

You can look up hooey sticks on the internet to see a demonstration.   It's really kind of neat!   And there's a scientific explanation too!  Check out this scientific description of how a hooey stick works:

Rubbing the ribbed stick with another stick along the grooves creates a vertical alternating driving force ${\displaystyle F_{y}}$ acting on the center of mass of the propeller:

${\displaystyle F_{y}(t)=Ycos(\omega t)}$

where ${\displaystyle \omega =2\pi /T}$ and T is the time taken for the stick to move from one groove to the next; ${\displaystyle Y}$ is some unknown scaling factor that characterizes the force with which the two sticks are pressed against one another. By rubbing a finger against these grooves on the side, one can also introduce a horizontal alternating driving force ${\displaystyle F_{x}}$

${\displaystyle F_{x}(t)=Xcos(\omega t+\phi )}$

where ${\displaystyle \phi }$ is a phase shift (describing the lag time between when the grooves contacts the moving rod, and finger respectively) and, again, X is some unknown scaling factor. Importantly, ${\displaystyle \omega }$ is the same frequency, and the two driving forces are said to be phase locked. The confluence of two phase matched driving forces in orthogonal directions gives rise to a rotational force on the center of mass at the propeller end, and thus, rotation.
When the operator of the whammy-doodle surreptitiously changes the side at which his/her finger contacts the stick (e.g. by contacting with his thumb instead of his fore-finger, or by changing the side at which a finger contacts the grooves of the base) he or she changes the sign of the phase ${\displaystyle \phi }$, and thus reverses the rotation.

Uh...........um.......huh??????  I must have been absent from class when this was explained in physics class!!

Besides the hooey stick, Harold made some other neat old timey toys.  These are all prototypes.  He is hoping to better his technique and make some to sell at our booth.  These old wooden toys were popular a century ago when kids didn't have video games!

Here's my favorite:  the walking duck!  This is a push toy for toddlers just learning to walk.  The duck has leather strips for feet, and when it is rolled along the bare floor, the leather feet make a 'flap-flap-flap'  sound.    When I need to de-stress, I walk around our house with little duckie! He sort of waddles from side to side besides making the flapping noise.   So cute!!

A close up of the waddling duck.

These woodpeckers are another neat toy for young kids.  When you lightly tap on the tail, the woodpecker pecks his way down the stick making a tapping noise like a woodpecker on a tree.   He is on a spring and the motion of tapping against the dowel is the energy that drives him down the pole.  Harold brought one of these to our church's nursery room and the kids got a real kick out of it.

Here's another pull toy for youngsters:  a dog that sniffs.  His legs and head move and it looks like he is sniffing things on the floor.  Harold says he needs to modify the original pattern to make a shorter nose.

Here's a monkey on a string trying to get to the banana tree.  My grandkids enjoyed this one a couple years ago.  You pull on the strings and the monkey rides up the rope to the banana.   Harold made a very long rope, so that a child has to keep on pulling to get the monkey up there!  You pull on the ropes one at a time and the monkey inches his way up. 

This guy is called a "limberjack".   You make him 'dance' by moving the stick and he taps his feet on a board and his arms swing around like he is tap dancing.   You can see demonstrations of this on the internet.  Some people are pretty good at this.  It does take practice to get the limberjack dancing right!

This is sort of like what I mean by having the guy dance on a board.  A person moves the handle stick in short up and down movements to get the dancing going.  It's even more fun when you try to keep up with some old time bluegrass mountain music!!

And finally, this is a "walking kangaroo".  By putting the kangaroo on an incline he "hops" down the board!

Harold has a jig saw, a scroll saw. a band saw, and a drill press in the basement to help him make these toys.   Also a belt and disc sander and router.   Makes for a good winter time hobby when it is 30 below outside!  And I have fun playing with the toys!