More fun than a canned ham, this flip-top storage tin has a train set inside, with a plastic steam engine, tender, boxcar and caboose, as well as a 12-piece track that forms a 10" x 22" oval. Tin and train car colors may vary. You add a "AA" battery and you're the engineer. 

Pop one of these roughly 1-1/4" dia stones into the toe of a sock, smash it with a hammer, and be the first person ever to see your real-as-Nature-makes-it geode!! Ninety percent of them have the familiar beautiful white crystals inside. Formed by volcanic action, they are found all over the world, but ours are from Mexico. There is no way to tell from the outside if they have crystal centers, but we will send you two just to raise your odds, and we haven't had a dud yet in our stores!! Much much more fun and satisfaction than buying one already cracked.

Zivko the Robot is back in stock! Our best selling STEM kit ever! Just call her (or him--it’s unclear and we don’t like to ask) “Zivko” because “the Robot” is her last name. Using just a screwdriver and side cutters, you build Zivko from this 107-piece S.T.E.M. kit. Set the mode for “Follow Me” or “Explore,” and Zivko will, yes, track you, or evade obstacles, respectively, via an infrared sensor and micro-controller programming. Interactive LEDs and sounds abound. Measures approx 5" x 5-1/2" x 6-1/2" when assembled with all (6) legs. You add (4) “AAA”s for power, which is the least you can do for someone this cute. Ages 10+.

Squeeze this squishy version of the eight-legged tardigrade, aks moss piglet, aka water bear, and it takes up to (9) seconds to slowly morph back into shape while you feel your stress disappear like the cashews in a bowl of mixed nuts. Measures 4-1/2” long in green with the squeezability of a marshmallow. You probably don’t even know you need it, but you’ll know you needed it once you start squeezing it.

Take these (250) little translucent beads into the sunlight and they burst into assorted colors faster than you can say "assorted colors." How do they do it? Well, they're UV-reactive, that's how. Mostly pink, purple, rose, yellow and cream and they fade to a nice pearly color inside. Amaze your friends at picnics. Beads measure 5/16" dia x 1/4" with a 5/32" bore. Come with classroom application notes.

A plastic pistol shaped toy that shoots slugs of raw potato. Push the barrel into a potato, break off the slug, aim and shoot up to fifteen feet. Loads of fun, environmentally harmless, and about as safe as any "projectile" toy can be!! Pulls apart for cleaning. For kids ages 5 and up.

2" flywheel in a well-made metal frame. The trick is the same as it has been for 100 years. Wind the string through the spindle, pull it firmly to set the flywheel spinning, and perform effortless balancing magic on pencil tips, string tightropes, and the like. We tend to forget that bicycles and aircraft navigation both rely heavily on gyroscopic principles. It's never too early to tell the kids. Besides, it's fun.

For Zivko the robot Click here

Sunprints (or cyanotypes, or photograms) are everyone's favorite photo-sensitivity experiment, from third-graders to graphic artists and fine artists. You pick: The Sunprinters are a dozen 3-15/16" square sheets of photosensitive paper, an acrylic backing sheet and instructions. The large Sunprint Kit has (15) sheets of 12" x 7-3/4" photosensitive paper plus a clear acrylic sheet of the same size. Great for classroom demonstrations, and can be used to make prints from photo negatives as well as interesting effects from opaque or translucent objects. All you add is sunshine and water.

There's optical science and high school physics, and then there's making pretty colors with this little 4-1/2" x about 1" acrylic prism. It makes the same rainbows that the beveled edges on the glass in the French doors to your grandmother's living room used to make on the floor in the afternoon while she was making supper. If you had a grandmother with French doors with beveled glass, who made you supper. If not, you'd better buy this prism or you won't have anything to remember after she's gone.

Introducing the Aeromax 2000. This update of the classic parachute toy has mesh under the canopy instead of lines, so it's tangle-free. Big 20" chute floats the little 3-1/2" tall trooper gently to the ground. In assorted colors, which we'll pick because we have really good color sense.