Huntington Local

By Michael R. Ebert
michael.ebert@newsday.com

John Bisbal III, a fifth-grader at James H. Boyd Intermediate School in Huntington, has been named the winner of WHAM-O’s 60th Anniversary Kid Inventor Contest for his design of a toy catapult.

For winning, he was awarded $2,000 and a chance for his toy to be included in WHAM-O’s 2010 toy lineup, with Bisbal receiving a portion of the profits.

“I don’t know, it just came to my head,” said Bisbal, 9, of his catapult concept. “I was reading Nick Magazine, and there were only two days left until the end of the contest, so I said to my dad, ‘Let’s try to come up with something,’ and it just came to me.”

According to Bisbal, the unnamed toy is intended for both indoor and outdoor use and tests the user’s skill and aim by catapulting balls from a specially designed launcher.

To become eligible, Bisbal — along with hundreds of other children from the United States and Canada — submitted a description and a drawing of their toys this summer.

“Of all the great toy concepts we reviewed, John’s was the closest to WHAM-O’s spirit of outdoor fun,” said Chris Gurlinger, WHAM-O’s vice president of marketing and licensing.

Bisbal said he didn’t specify any materials or dimensions for his toy catapult, but he said he plans to use the winning money to give his bedroom a movie-theme face-lift.