G Shock watches
G Shock watches have been around since the early 1980′s when the first one, model DW-5000C (below) went on sale in 1983.
First G Shock DW-5000
Since then the story of G Shock has gone on to become a worldwide sensation, famous for they’re toughness and an important part of urban culture and youth lifestyle.
The designer Kikuo Ibe’s motivation to develop an indestructible watch was driven by a traumatic episode during his childhood.
Project Team Tough
The event occurred when he dropped a precious watch given to him by his father and saw it smash to pieces on the floor. In hoping to save other people the mental anguish that he went through by creating a tough unbreakable watch he formed “Project Team Tough” in 1981.
Since it was an unofficial project Ibe couldn’t use Casio’s testing labs so he would drop the prototypes from his bathroom window to see how well they withstood the 10m impact which was part of the “Triple 10″ requirements that the team came up with:
- Survive a 10 meter drop.
- Have a 10 Bar water resistance.
- A 10 year battery.
Having gone through over 200 prototypes, Ibe found the solution to the development of a special shock resistance system when he saw a girl playing with a rubber ball in his local park. This gave him the idea for what would become the Floating Module Configuration.
” The Floating Module Configuration is a hollow structure which absorbs the shock in different levels and this hollow structure makes it hard to pass through the shock to the main module components.” Ibe explains.
To this was added a Urethane case that enclosed the glass and buttons in order to protect those areas from impacts. The band also was specially designed to help cushion against impacts by limiting the range of movement to 150 Degrees. All this was incorporated into the design and creation of the first g shock watches.
Environmental Models
Casio has released many special edition models to help draw attention to environmental groups and agencies here are some of these models.
The Masai Mara G Shock.
Released in 1997 this model came in three colours, blue, black and green and commerated the Masai Mara national reserve of Kenya which is part of the Serengeti National park in Tanzania. The reserve is named afted the Masai people and the Mara river. Part of the sales revenue was donated to the Masai Mara Wildlife Development Fund.
The A.D.M.A. model
Casio released five A.D.M.A models in January 1998, they were Codename G Shocks along with a collection of Baby G’s. A.D.M.A. stands for Alaskan Dog Musher’s’ Association. They feature white velcro straps with the A.D.M.A logo.
The I.C.E.R.C model
The International Cetacean Education and Research Centers (I.C.E.R.C.). do Dolphin and Whale research. These G shock models were released in time with the International Dolphin and Whale Eco-Research conference in November of 1994.
Read about the G shock Frogman