Aiming for Victory in 2025: Spinning Tops Competition in Akita
Engineers, college students, and high school students in northeastern Japan competed on Oct. 26, 2024, in a battle of cutting-edge spinning tops, which the participants designed and constructed themselves .
Two of the teams included some of Orbray’s young engineers and students from Yuzawa Shouhoku technical college. The competition was held at Akita Prefectural University in Yuri Honjo City. In a small rink, one team spins its top against their opponents’ top. They win if their top flicks the opponents’ top out of the rink or keeps spinning longer.
A spinning top – a traditional hand-crafted toy dating back more than 1,000 years, called koma in Japanese – is a small, rounded toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, which is spun on its vertical axis, balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect. Once set in motion, a top will usually wobble for a few seconds, spin upright for a while, and then start to wobble again with increasing amplitude as it loses energy.
Each of the tops crafted by the Orbray teams made a valiant effort, aiming to win the championship. Unfortunaltely, they failed to make it to the final contest. Even so, right after the tournament, the teammates made up their minds to try again for victory in 2025.
Orbray has participated in the region’s annual competition, dubbed “the Akita Match,” since last year. Participants are required to form a team composed of corporate engineers and college or high school students. Seventeen companies and 11 schools joined the contest this year, more than last year’s 15 firms and nine schools.
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Orbray’s Team Yokozuna and Team rpm530,000 Prepared to Fight
In the middle of July, our two teams were formed: Team Yokozuna, with two Orbray engineers and four first-year technical college students, and Team rpm530,000, with three Orbray engineers and two technical college sophomores. The members worked together to design and manufacture their tops, striving to make their pieces strong and resilient. In the final week before the competition, the students assigned to be the spinners practiced again and again, focusing their energy in their fingers to manipulate the small tops.
The members of Team Yokozuna, who fought in this tournament for the first time, realized around September-October that they didn’t have much time left and had to hurry up their work.
Team Yokozuna
Team Yokozuna designed two different types of tops. At first, they intended to make a top that wouldn’t easily wobble even in a collision against another top. However, the engineers noticed that this model was too light and too difficult to make. The members were therefore forced to abandon that plan. They then designed another top, which was devised to keep spinning longer in the corner of the rink by using a diamond point. However, the engineers found that processing diamond was difficult, and they had to ask for technical advice from multiple sections at Orbray’s factory. Because the manufacturing of the top was so technical, the students weren’t able to contribute much to the production process. Still, the students offered many ideas and were very pleased with the end result.
Thanks to their earnest efforts, the students acquired the skill of getting their tops to spin on the rink for a long time. Believe it or not, in this tournament, the two Orbray teams had to fight each other in the first round! Though the teams each won two games in the tournament, they failed to make it through the preliminaries. The students said they want to compete again in 2025 by reflecting on what they learned from this year’s experience.
Team rpm530,000
Team rpm530,000 manufactured their top pretty smoothly. They made various parts from different materials and then assembled them. Therefore, the team had difficulty in maintaining the axis through the center of the top and lowering its center of gravity. Initially, the team intended to use zinc and tungsten to add weight to the top, but they gave up on that idea because those materials turned out to be unsuitable for processing. Finally, the team completed their top with support and advice from Orbray’s production technology section.
The top made by Team rpm530,000 looks like a long acorn. It could easily knock down an opponent’s top. Even so, the team was unnerved by the tense atomosphere of the actual competition and failed to make it through the preliminaries. The members hope to make a more powerful top next year by using heavier material.
Both teams learned some important lessons, according to the participants: It is difficult to perform well in real matches. No matter how good your top is, you might be caught up in pressure when a camera focuses on your match on the rink. Or you might become tense and spin your top too forcefully, which could cause it to be flipped out of the rink or lose its balance. It’s important to be relaxed in a bout and spin your top with a calm mind. Practice really matters here.
Orbray Teams Learn the Importance of Communication in Production Process
Through the competition, the young Orbray employees learned how to put together a variety of ideas submitted by the team members. They also tried hard to find suitable materials, and had to compile a feasible work schedule of three months to complete their tops and manage their time.
Orbray’s young engineers who joined the competition are still working to acquire all-round manufacturing skills. The task of making cutting-edge tops required them to ask for support and advice from experienced engineers regarding design and manufacturing. The young engineers therefore had to communicate well with these veterans. According to the young engineers, the event helped them learn how to reach a consensus in discussions with others, instead of taking one side or the other, giving in to the most powerful voice, or making all the decisions alone.
For next year’s event, I hope Orbray’s teams will create a stronger top and maintain their own mental equilibrium so that they can win the championship. One technical college sophomore said he is scheduled to start working for Orbray in 2025 and will particpate in a next year’s match as an Orbray engineer.
I can hardly wait for next year’s competition!
【YouTube】Please click here. You can see the Spinning Tops Tournament in Akita. 2024
https://www.komataisen.com
