If you’ve ever wondered what’s inside Hello Kitty, we now know there’s a Valentine-shaped heart with a little bow as well as lungs that look at you and cute little intestines. Of course. Designer Dr. Romanelli made these for MediCom Toy Incorporated. Link -via Buzzfeed

This is the current rage in the Neatorama Shop: Zoomdoggle’s insanely fun BuckyBalls – a set of 216 balls made from powerful rare earth magnets.

You can shape and mold an unlimited variations of magnetic sculpture (of course, if you get more than 1, you can combine them to create a mega-sculpture!). Tear ‘em apart and snap ‘em back together for hours of fun.

BuckyBalls is this week’s featured product at the Neatorama Shop. For a limited time, you’ll get a free Mystery Gift for the purchase of each BuckyBalls (What will you get? Well, we won’t tell you … it’s a mystery!)

Don’t miss this: Link

Take, for instance, Slinky:

Slinky was invented by Naval engineer Richard James. He knocked a spring off of a shelf when he was working to develop springs that could keep ship instruments stable in choppy waters. The spring did what a Slinky does… it stepped down to a stack of books, then to the table, and then to the floor, where it righted itself into a cylinder. James knew it would be a great toy, and tests by neighborhood kids proved him right.

Link – via i met a possum

This week is Custom Con 22, where toy customizers get to show off their latest creations. So far, my favorites are Luke Porter’s set of Psycho Minimates. Other particularly strong entries are Sillof’s Victorian Avengers and action figures based on the movies of Terry Gilliam.

Melissa Sue Stanley’s Etsy shop is full of creepy plush creations like this armless monster.

A rattleback or wobblestone is an object with a smooth bottom that can be spun like a top. Unlike conventional tops, however, the rattleback has an asymmetry which gives it a preferred direction of spin. If spun in the opposite direction, it will begin to wobble, and then change the direction of its spin.

It would seem that if a spinning object changes the direction of its spin, it is defying the law of conservation of angular momentum, but apparently it is the rocking/wobbling motion that is converted into counter-rotational motion, not the initial rotation.

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.

Back in 2000 Stark convinced the Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma, City Countil that they needed a tourist attraction and the toy museum would solve the problem. Five years later the museum opened its doors.

Inside is one of the largest action figure exhibits in the world, from a Star Wars display to a Batman shrine, the amount of figures the museum has on display outweighs its display space, meaning figures are on constant rotation so every character and creation gets it due.

Since opening in 2005 the museum has had visitors from every state in the U.S. and over thirty foreign countries, totaling over 40,000 visitors. Wired has gallery of pictures if you can’t go in person. Link

(image credit: Jim Merithew/Wired.com)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Everyone has used, seen or, at least, heard of a ViewMaster, the most classic of classic toys. For decades children have peered through the plastic ViewMaster binoculars and been transported to other worlds. As a kid, who didn’t watch a scuffle between Batman and The Joker play out in a myriad of 3D Pows and Whams or become a witness to picnic basket thievery by the infamous Yogi Bear. But who was responsible for creating the contraption’s 3D images?

“Most fans of the tiny fantasy worlds glimpsed through the lens of a View-Master viewer are probably unaware of the name Florence Thomas. Thomas was the Portland, Oregon sculptor employed by the makers of the 3-D viewer to create miniature dioramas of fairy tales and pop culture scenes which she then photographed for reproduction into the iconic circular white reels that have delighted children and adult collectors for decades.”

Link

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by whitespace.

This is really neat. I tried it myself (takes a while the first time) and the more you use it the better it gets due to the paper being folded often. The kids just love it.

Link: Superpunch