Rattleback Space Pets - One Space Pet

by Tedco

Product Features

• A science curiosity whose ancient and mysterious properties capture the attention of all ages
• This little oddity has a natural spin bias and is a cylinder lens that magnifies vertically.
• A real scientific curiosity

Product Details

• Item Weight: 0.5 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B000GYWYRW
• Manufacturer recommended age: 7 - 12 years
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,376 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Product Description

More commonly known as "rattlebacks", these "space pets" work based on very complicated dynamics laws. Their motion has been studied by many scientists and few of them could come up with exact explanation.Can be an inspiring toy! Also called a Celt or wobblestone, is an oblong boat-shaped object which, when placed on a rough horizontal surface and made to rotate about a vertical axis, sometimes stops rotating, begins to oscillate (wobble), then starts rotating in the reverse direction. After being spun, and just prior to reversing direction, a Space Pet rocks up and down on its long axis. Space Pets have a counterclockwise spin bias, resulting from the shape of their smooth ellipsoidal base and the distribution of mass with respect to the axis of spin. Hank Review: It's true. The darn thing has a preferred direction of spin. You can tell that it has something to do with the shape of the curved side, and you'll try to explain how it does what it does in your mind, but unless you're a bonefied genius, you'll never be completely sure about exactly how it operates. I'll occasionally sit and flick this thing over and over again for disturbingly long periods of time, and never lose fascination. It's so simple, and yet so perplexing. Like trying to understand why hard concrete darkens when you pour water on it. It's consistant, it's simple, and it's right in front of me, but I always have to face the fact, eventually, that I quite simply don't get it. Get one. If nothing else, it's a unique lucky charm.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Toy for Engineers and Scientists, October 19, 2009

By 

R. Watts (Lewisville, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rattleback Space Pets - One Space Pet (Toy)

This is a wonderful toy that will absolutely dazzle your fellow engineers or scientists. I had a physicist in my office who watched me spin the rattleback and he actually got out of his chair, exclaiming "That's not possible!". He spent the next ten minutes examining this innocuous piece of plastic, looking for the mechanism that would allow it to violate the laws of physics.

Needless to say, I get a lot of mileage out of these toys.

Please be advised: If you order more than one of these via Amazon, they will stick you with a shipping charge for each item as if each item were being packaged separately (they came in one small box). So the six or eight dollar charge it should have been ended up over $59 for ten small pieces of plastic!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, June 2, 2011

By 

D. Ownbey "book and tv addict" (Laramie, Wyoming United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rattleback Space Pets - One Space Pet (Toy)

It looks like an ordinary piece of plastic...but amazes me with what it does. I don't understand the physics, but I've astonished kids who are in my office with their parents. How DOES it do that?

5.0 out of 5 stars Good scientific toy, May 12, 2011

By 

Rusty P. (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Rattleback Space Pets - One Space Pet (Toy)

This thing is great. I'd seen one years ago and then forgot about it. Then one day I was asking my wife if she'd ever seen one and she'd never heard of it. Well then, now she was getting one! I ordered one, knowing that the color was "luck of the draw", and to my surprise the one that came was purple (my wife's favorite color). So we liberated it from it's packaging and spun it on the dining room table. Ok, so what? Then she spun it the other direction and after a couple of rotations it became unstable, wobbled crazily, and then spun gently in the opposite direction. It really makes you go "HUH?". Great fun.
We took it with us to her parents house later and really had fun watching the looks on thier faces when it "did its trick".
That was after we explained what it would do. Next time I show it to someone I'm not telling them anything first. I'm just going to say "Hey, watch this."
We also found a secondary use for it besides the regular "bar trick". It's fun to just spin it while you're doing something else, much like how you would twirl a pencil, or drum your fingers on the desk.