this is a weird wind-up spinny toy thing that i've got. you wind up the key-like bit at the top which is attached to a cog. this cog tightens a spring which is slowly released when you let go, causing the wheels to spin. not particularly unique as wind-up toys go, however what makes this a little different is that the cog is also attached to a circular spinny thing. (these are all technical terms by the way) this part, which you can see blurred in the photo, has two metal prongs, which when spinning round, scrape against the rough textured black ring. this friction causes sparks to fly off, which look pretty cool. now instead of attempting to describe this, what i should do now is show you a picture of it. however i still haven't figured out the best way to capture this. the problem i have is that you can only really see the sparks with a long exposure, yet as the whole toy moves when the sparks are a flying, well, it's so far made for a bunch of blurry photos. you'll just have to picture it in your head until i crack it.

here's the original

this is a weird wind-up spinny toy thing that i've got. you wind up the key-like bit at the top which is attached to a cog. this cog tightens a spring which is slowly released when you let go, causing the wheels to spin. not particularly unique as wind-up toys go, however what makes this a little different is that the cog is also attached to a circular spinny thing. (these are all technical terms by the way) this part, which you can see blurred in the photo, has two metal prongs, which when spinning round, scrape against the rough textured black ring. this friction causes sparks to fly off, which look pretty cool. now instead of attempting to describe this, what i should do now is show you a picture of it. however i still haven't figured out the best way to capture this. the problem i have is that you can only really see the sparks with a long exposure, yet as the whole toy moves when the sparks are a flying, well, it's so far made for a bunch of blurry photos. you'll just have to picture it in your head until i crack it.

here's the original