How to make ice cream while playing with a Sanrio yo-yo

Posted on 30/06/2023 by Ida Torres

If you grew up in a household where you were reprimanded for “playing with your food”, the idea of putting together toys and food may be either sacrilege or a fun activity to do with your own kids (or by yourself). There are several toys out there that can turn cooking or making food more interesting and even educational at times. The Japanese in particular have a knack for creating things like this which make you wish you had them when you were a kid.

Designer: Takara Tomy

The Ice Da Yo-Yo is a collaboration between the Japanese toymaker and popular brand Sanrio. From the name itself, you can probably tell that it has something to do with yo-yos and ice cream. It’s basically a portable ice cream maker that teaches kids the science of making no-churn ice cream while also enjoying the classic yo-yo. And the reward at the end of the process is that you get to eat the sweet concoction that you made while you were playing.

The thingamajig is made up of two containers. One is where you place the ingredients like the fruit and the milk and the other is where you place ice, water, and salt, the latter of which causes the ice to become colder and help freeze the other ingredients. Then you spend three minutes bobbing the yo-yo until you’re able to finally create ice cream and eat it afterwards.

The Ice Da Yo-Yo features designs with popular Sanrio characters like Hello Kitty, My Melody, Cinnamoroll and Kuromi. It also comes with a booklet with different ice cream recipes like strawberry, chocolate, mango, cookies and cream, and even an orange sherbet for the lactose intolerant. It’s something I’d add to my shopping cart if I ever make my way to Japan again soon. Or maybe I’ll just buy my own ice cream and leave it to the kids to study how to make it on their own.

The post How to make ice cream while playing with a Sanrio yo-yo first appeared on Yanko Design.

This saucer-shaped light fixture hangs by electric wires like a yo-yo to look as if it’s floating midair!

Posted on 17/12/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

Light in Tight is a line of saucer-shaped light fixtures that hang from electric wires just like a yo-yo, designed by Seungheon Baek and Jinhyeong Kwon.

Our interior spaces can be transformed with the right lighting. Through the years, the iterations of desk lamps and standing light fixtures to come from designers have truly been endless. Considering the necessity of light in interior spaces, light fixtures will remain relevant in the design world for decades to come. Inspired by the fastening potential of taut telephone pole wires, Seungheon Baek and Jinhyeong Kwon developed Light in Tight, an innovative light fixture design that gives the illusion that it’s floating in midair.

Struck by an image of the moon stationed brightly behind tangles of telephone wires, Baek and Kwon found both practicality and aesthetics for their lighting design. Light in Tight is comprised of three components: an electric wire power supply, three different types of lights, and a clamp-in screw mechanism. Holding the fixture’s glass coverings together, the clamp-in screw fastens the light bulb’s container and provides a point of tension for the electric wires to be pulled taut.

The power supply electric wire loops over the hyperbolic shaped light fixture, kind of like a yo-yo, to keep it in place while the wire ends find respective hanging points. Light in Tight can be configured midair in numerous positions, transforming the height, direction, and movement of the lighting as it changes.

The most amount of luminosity coming from Light in Tight is emitted towards the floor, while our periphery sightlines remain dim. Moving from the light fixture’s brightest section, the translucent covering grows in opacity towards the top. Shaped like a saucer, Light in Tight has a unique look that would complement modern interiors nicely, while remaining familiar enough to feel classic in any room.

Designers: Seungheon Baek and Jinhyeong Kwon

The light fixtures hang from electric wires that loop over the hyperbolic shape of the light bulb’s outfittings.

Light in Tight comes with a small spotlight fixture that hangs the same way as the line’s larger light fixtures.

From its base, the lightbulb container is translucent, lighting the ground below, then opacifies near the top.

The post This saucer-shaped light fixture hangs by electric wires like a yo-yo to look as if it’s floating midair! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Alladin’s Magic (self-rolling) Yoga Carpet

Posted on 15/08/2017 by Sarang Sheth

This Yoga mat renders the popular catchphrase “they see me rollin” obsolete. Designed with technology borrowed and refined from a child’s slap-on wrist band, the YoYo Mats stay flat when you need them to, and automatically (automagically) roll up neatly when you’re done!

It isn’t as simple as it looks however, say founders Aaron and Yu. They spent several months refining the process till they got it to work like a charm. The result? Bloody impressive! The mat stays absolutely flat when you need it, never dog-earing or folding over and being an annoyance while you’re meditating, exercising, or dancing. Do what you gotta do, and then just flip the mat over and it autonomously rolls up (akin to a yo-yo, hence the name) into a neat little roll that’ll never roll crooked, thanks to its dual rolling band arrangement… which you can then pick up and carry home or dump in the boot of your car! Now if only they made some self-tucking bedsheets…

Designers: Aaron Thornton & Yu Tsai.