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robogolF�You�don’t�have�to�putt�like�tiger�Woods�to�practice�like�him

If you think there’s still too much walking around in golf, even with a golf

cart, you need the RoboCup and Caddy Cord, a ball-return robot and a missed-putt return guide.

RoboCup, which won Best New Product at the 2009 PGA Merchandise Show in January, works on any practice green. When your putt drops into the hole, a springboard device automatically shoots the ball right back. It runs on four AA batteries, which should be good for 12 000 putt returns of up to 4 meters.

The Caddy Cord, made of a fl exible double-braided nylon cord, wraps around the back of the hole, sending the ball along the cord and back to the hole, where the RoboCup can return it.

“The Caddy Cord also provides feedback on your putting stroke,” says Keith Foley, RoboCup’s inventor. Putt too hard and the ball will jump over the cord; putt too short and your ball won’t get returned. “This encourages a proper putting distance, rewarding you with the returned ball,” he says.

Mike Dugan, a golf professional in Kissimmee, Fla., says his students

“become fascinated with the RoboCup and are motivated to make more putts so the ball will return to them.”

—Susan Karlin

that thrives on new tricks that can be thrown only on new yo-yo designs.

Using his computer-aided design, manufacturing, and machining expertise, Kaiser created what became the fi rst General-Yo product, the Torrent, released last December.

Built with aerospace-rated bearings, the Torrent could spin in place at the end of the string (known as

“sleeping”) for minutes at a time. Thanks to precision machining, it balanced well for tricks that could only be described as a kind of fast-moving, ultra-dynamic combination of juggling, plate spinning, and cat’s cradle.

“I thought about what makes these things tick,” Kaiser says. “I tried to put the weight as far out on the diameter as possible and put a very small axle on the inside, [making it] very hard to machine.”

Kaiser made only 60 Torrents; they sold out in six weeks. In March, a new design, the 5-Star, sold out in one day. A second-generation 5-Star also quickly sold out.

For the holidays, Kaiser

will be coming out with a new model, the Hat Trick, which will also be a limited release and undoubtedly a sellout as well.

A leading yo-yo retailer, the A2Z Science and Learning Store (http://a-two-z.com), recommends two new yo-yos that have similar specs and street cred—albeit without the aerospace-geek pedigree.

YoYoJam’s New Breed, designed by national champion yo-yoer Eric Koloski, also boasts a wide body and long sleep times, which make it well suited for the catalogs of tricks chronicled on sites like Yoyoexpert.com and Yoyonation.com.

The YoYoFactory’s 888 features two inner bearing-mounted wheels on either side (“hub stacks”) that expert yo-yoers can grab to hold the yo-yo without stopping it from spinning.

—Mark Anderson

A neW spin on An olD toY the�humble�yo-yo�gets�a�high-tech�makeover

The yo-yo, like the Frisbee before it, has gone pro.

It’s no longer just a US $2 piece of circular plastic that unspools down a string and spools back up. A top-of-the-line yo-yo these days is a precision-engineered device with a two- or three-fi gure price tag. Just ask Ernest Kaiser, a.k.a. “General-Yo,” an aerospace engineer working in Riverside, Calif., for a “medium-sized company that supplies big companies,” as he puts it.

Last year, when out shopping for a new computer mouse, Kaiser ran across a bin of Duncan plastic yo-yos and picked one up on a whim. He hadn’t played with one since he was a kid. (The yo-yo term of art, Kaiser soon learned, is throwing rather than playing.) Some number of throws and Google searches later, Kaiser discovered an entire Internet yo-yo subculture

Hat Trick US $100; General-Yo; http://generalyo.com[photo unavailable; 5-Star is shown]

RoboCup and Caddy Cord US $59.95; Fine Tune Golfhttp://www.fi netunegolf.com

888 $119.99; YoYoFactory; http://shop.yoyoexpert.com/manufacturer/3/YoYoFactory

New Breed $40.80; YoYo Jamhttp://yoyonation.com/product.php?productid=16843 photo: SteVe KoloSKi

US $100; General-Yo;

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