So we should expect to see KP’s Cup as a contributing Doper sometime in the near future then? 
>The Levitron only works when spinning in a narrow range (20-35 rps). It is completely unstable above 35-40 or below 18 rps […] their “Physics of LEVITRON” page.
Well, yeah, I read all that. They make the point that the spinning serves to stabilize the direction of the top’s axis. I can’t think it through clearly enough to justify this, but I still have the feeling that it would take more than that to levitate permanent magnets. I think it is obvious that any treatment that makes the top’s axis stay vertical would accomplish what they say is going on, and I also think that my long straw keel weight would be such a treatment. I think there must be something particular to the top’s spinning that is distinct from its tendency to keep the axis vertical. They do talk about precession - maybe the point is that the way a top precesses produces an effect that more than cancels an instability to the system. That is, if you replaced the top with something for which 4 degrees of freedom in position were unrestrained, but the two degrees that point the axis were restrained to keep it vertical, and this something was not spinning and had no precession, then, I think it wouldn’t work anymore. But like I say this is not clear enough to justify.
>Not so: It applies to any static configuration.
Ditto that - I’d always understood it that way.