Back in 1981, Kikuo Ibe inadvertently dropped a much-loved wristwatch given to him by his father â and could only look on in horror as it shattered on the ground.
The incident moved the Casio electronics designer to set about developing a truly tough timepiece, a process he began by throwing another watch from a second floor lavatory window at the firm s research and development facility.
It broke, too.
For his next experiment, Mr Ibe equipped a watch with a ball-like protective cage. It worked, but was too bulky to be practical, so he decided to develop a rugged plastic case to allow the mechanism to âfloatâ on five impact-absorbing contact points. His aim was to create an electronic watch with a ten-year battery life, ten bar of water resistance and the capability to survive at least a ten metre drop onto a solid surface.