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The Frisbee
Word of the Week glide — to move smoothly and continuously along
Newspaper Knowledge Each week for four weeks, do the following activity to understand your newspaper’s contents better: measure in column inches, all the local news, feature material, editorials, photographs, advertisements, sports, artwork, obituaries and miscellaneous. Which category had the most inches each week? For the month?
Did You Know? • Flying disks are capable of traveling astonishing distances, but they've got nothing on the Aerobie ring, the current longflying champ. Below are a few notable records for both. • Farthest Frisbee toss by a nonhuman: 32 feet, by Alex, a sea lion, in 1996 at the St. Louis Zoo. • Farthest Frisbee toss by a kid age 12 or younger: 403.7 feet, by 12-year-old Mary Uhlarik in 1992 (12-year-old boys still have 43 feet to go before taking away her record) • Farthest flying disk toss: 820 feet, by Christian Sandstrom in 2002. • Farthest Aerobie toss: 1,257 feet, by Scott Zimmerman in 1986.
Who Invented the Frisbee? At first glance in the park or at the beach, you may confuse it for an UFO (unidentified flying object) and rush home thinking the Martians have really landed from outer space! Soon it becomes clear that the "spacecraft" is actually a harmless toy – a colorful Frisbee, and the creature from outer space is the boy next door! Today, almost all of us have seen one or sent a Frisbee gliding through air. We have seen dogs chase it and leap to catch these flying discs. The toy has proved enormously popular and there are Frisbee throwing competitions held in America. The flying disc was named Frisbee after a 19th century Connecticut Yankee called William Russell Frisbie, a baker by profession. In 1871, he was hired to manage a branch of the Olds Baking Company. He soon bought it outright and named it the Frisbie Pie Company. It offered a variety of baked goodies, including pies and cookies. The pies and cookies were packed in round tin containers and sold to the students of Yale University, nearby. After eating the pies, the students would have fun tossing the round tins in the air. The tin throwing craze would have died but for the shrewd sense of one man: Walter Frederick Morrison from Utah. Morrison had served in World War II. Like many people during the 1930s and 1940s, who claimed to have seen blinking lights and flying saucer-like objects from outer space, called UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects), Morrison, too, was bitten by the UFO bug. This craze had reached its peak in 1938 when a science fiction story by HG Wells was dramatized on radio by an actor called Orson Welles.
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Called the “War of the Worlds” the radio play, aired in New York, made the fiction seem a reality by announcing that little green men from planet Mars had indeed invaded the Earth. Listeners who did not know that it was a play thought it was the latest news and ran out in the streets in fear. Morrison was smart enough to think of cashing in on this flying saucer craze. He took lids of cans and welded a steel ring inside the rim to improve the plate's stability. But this wasn't very successful. In 1951, Morrison improved upon his model and the design. As it was to look like an UFO, he redesigned it with small portholes to give it a realistic touch. In California, Rich Knerr and A.K. Melin, who had started a little toy company called
Wham-O saw Morrison's flying saucers being flown on the beaches. In 1955, they bought Morrison's flying saucer. In 1957, the company introduced it in the market under the name Pluto Platter, inspired no doubt by the UFO craze. In 1958, while on a trip to Yale, Knerr heard the words "Frisbee" and "Frisbee-ing" as well as the story of Yale college students throwing pie tins. Therefore he decided to call Pluto Platter by the new name of Frisbee. Frisbee, thus became a registered trademark for the plastic disc. The Frisbee has glided a long way from its pie tin days. Today it is a fun game played by millions. To have fun, the toy just needs two arms – one to throw and one to catch, not necessarily your own.
Frisbee Games FRISBEE BOCCE Frisbee bocce is a target game that tests kids' throwing accuracy. Give each player a Frisbee and have players form a line in a flat, grassy field. Have the first player in line roll a baseball or tennis ball forward as far as she wants. Then each player takes a turn tossing
his Frisbee, trying to make it land on the ball. If any player's Frisbee lands on the ball, she wins the round and receives two points. Otherwise, the player who throws his Frisbee closest to the ball wins the round and receives one point. The first player to accumulate five points wins the game.
player lays one of the If you are hosting an outdoor Frisbees on top. The players continue placing Frisbees on birthday party for your toddler or preschooler, the kids top of the pile, one at a time, until it falls over. If you want, will love the Frisbee tower you can have the players game. Give each player a compete by giving them one bunch of mini-Frisbees and point for each Frisbee they have them form a circle. The put on the pile without birthday boy goes first by it over. The player knocking laying one of his Frisbees in with the most points after the middle. Then the next playing several games wins.
FRISBEE TOWER
Learn the History of the Flying Disk It’s an aerodynamic wonder, an international sporting phenomenon – and one great dog toy. It’s the flying disk, of course, and your family’s ticket to highflying fun.
1947: A rash of UFO sightings begins a national obsession with what quickly became known as flying saucers.
1948: The first flying plastic disk is molded into shape over a water heater in a 708 B.C.: The discus throw becomes an California basement. It's called the Flyin' Olympic event in ancient Greece. Saucer to cash in on the new public craze. 300 B.C.-300 A.D.: An ancient Indian text describes chakrams, weapons 1950: A Flyin' Saucer appears in the Li'l shaped like an Aerobie. Abner comic strip and gets a publicity boost. 60 A.D.: Warrior princess Xena develops her own unique chakram style. 1955: A Flyin' Saucer creator refines the toy and calls his improved model the 1920: American college students begin Pluto Platter. flinging the tins their Frisbee pies came in. 1964: The James Bond movie "Goldfinger" introduces Oddjob, whose steel-rimmed bowler hat gives new meaning to Frisbee guts.
Thank you to all of the students that participated in the 2012 Recycled Ornament Contest! Winners of the contest to be announced soon!
1967: A group of bored New Jersey high-schoolers invents the Frisbee game known as Ultimate Frisbee. Team captain Joel Silver goes on to become a hotshot Hollywood producer, making the Matrix movies, among others. 1984: Hampshire College in Massachusetts awards John Dwork a bachelor of arts degree in "Flying Disc Entertainment and Education" – in other words, the science, economics and culture of Frisbee playing. 2012: Today the Frisbee is flown all over the world as a fun and exciting outdoor past-time. Frisbee golf is becoming a No. 1 past-time in the USA.
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