The galaxy was one of our first toys, and also our favorite. At first, it seemed like such a simple idea: create a wooden version of the Spiral Wishing Wells that you might find at a children's museum. The motion of the coin is so entrancing for kids and we wanted to replicate it. We also loved how the motion mimicked objects orbitting in space. However, this toy was tough to develop.

One of our first problems was deciding how to generate the desired curvature. If the curvature was too extreme the ball would not roll for very long. If the curvature was not extreme enough, the ball would take too long to reach the center. The optimal curve was discorever through trial and error. The curve generated is based off of a simple parabolic curve. So to alter the curvature we just had to change the degree of the parabola, once we found the proper curvature we knew it becasue everyone loved it.

Our next step was to find out how to make the the ball run stand up. We thought about making a solid shape base, like a cylinder, but that didn't seem stable enought. We finally settled on three columns that were threaded so that they could be removed for shipping. It was always a huge hurdle to design toys that looked good, were fun to play with, and could easily ship.

This toy has been our biggest seller, and is still our most requested toy. We love the open endedness of the toy combined with it's effectiveness as a learning manipulative. As an added bonus, we found that marbles, spinning tops, and other toys work really well and are fun to watch orbit. (pic or movie of ball run marbles and spinning top)

Since the Galaxy Ball Run was such a big seller, we decided to try a few more simple ball runs. We made a ball run with two centers of gravity, or two parabolic curves merged into one another. Both turned out really well, and we love their simplicity.