Ton's o' Toys

Marilyn is showing us a toy flying squirrel, and it's made out of polyisoprene rubber and polyurethane foam. Nurture your inner child, come inside our toy store, and you'll see that this squirrel is just one of the many toys made out of polymers.

Look at this! There's a zebra, a rhino, a tree frog, a brachiosaurus... All these critters are rendered here for us in, once again, polyisoprene.

Keeping with the animal theme, these puppets are stuffed with polyurethane foam. On the outside their fur, be they mammals, is made of things like polyacrylonitrile and their scales, be they fish, are made of nylon.

Like to play with robots? This little robot is made of polystyrene. The wires have insulation made out of things like polyethylene and polysioprene. Inside there are circuit boards, which are often made from epoxy resins.

If the other kids are all having fun and they didn't invite you, you can spy on them while they're having a good time on the other side of the fence with this oh-so discreet periscope. It's made out of polyethylene.

No one is really sure what the name of this doodad is, but ain't it nifty? It's a polyethylene tube filled with polystyrene beads. When you push the yellow sleeve up and down the tube, it generates static electricity that makes the beads stick to the inside of the tube. Neato, huh?

Remember this? It's that neato pinwheel whose rotation was so fascinating when you were three. Its vanes are made out of a composite material, that is a material made of more than one component. The vanes are made out of a sheet of aluminum foil stuck to a sheet of polyester. It's also used to make those nifty balloons you get when you're sick that say "Get well or else" and such on them.

This is a toy popular among children and inner children alike. We'd get in trouble if we told you its name, because it's a trademark, so we're going to call it a "land anemone" and let it go at that. It's made out of polyisoprene.

When I was a kid, hopscotch was an outside game, but I guess it's hard to play hopscotch in the rain, because the rain washes away your chalk marks on the sidewalk. So now you can play it inside with this indoor hopscotch mat. It's made out of polyurethane foam.

Sand is a fantastic toy in and of itself, but it can be even more fun with these scoops and buckets. They're made out of polyethylene. The net they're in is made of nylon.

I think more grown children play with race cars like this one than do the little ones. But grown children need to play, too. This one has a body made of polystyrene and tires made of polyisoprene.

Finally, we have a writing utensil that looks like a thresher shark. A thresher shark uses its unusually long tail to herd fish in the direction of its mouth. That tail and the whole shark on this pen are made of polyethylene.

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