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"I think a lot of kids whose mental growth outruns their maturity gravitate to science fiction."
- Dan Simmons

Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy  
  Futuristic children's game.  

This reminds me of a playground device that I've seen for the last fifteen years or so (not when I was a kid). It is a three foot-wide funnel set at the top of a pole; the funnel lets out into four chutes that point in four directions. You throw the ball into the funnel (an easy 'basket'), and then you have to guess which direction it will come out; lots of fun for groups of kids.

The Director and his students stood for a short time watching a game of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy. Twenty children were grouped in a circle round a chrome steel tower. A ball thrown up so as to land on the platform at the top of the tower rolled down into the interior, fell on a rapidly revolving disk, was hurled through one or other of the numerous apertures pierced in the cylindrical casing, and had to be caught.
Technovelgy from Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.
Published by Unknown in 1932
Additional resources -

I'm not sure when the first use of centrifugal force was made in games. People have specifically studied centrifugal force since the mid-seventeenth century, when "whirling tables" were made to illustrate effects.

Thanks to Alex Mair for contributing this item.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Brave New World
  More Ideas and Technology by Aldous Huxley
  Tech news articles related to Brave New World
  Tech news articles related to works by Aldous Huxley

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