Koosh Balls
Patented in 1986 by engineer Scott Stillinger, Koosh Balls came about from a father who was trying to teach his kids how to play catch. The balls bounced too much, and bean bags were too heavy, so it was a lose-lose situation. Stillinger said, “I intuitively knew that a rubber-filament ball would do the trick, so I set out to try to find a way to make that.” What began with a box of rubber bands, eventually became an energy-absorbing ball, and the Koosh balls that we see today. Surely, we’d be much better at catching if we learned how to catch a ball with a Koosh ball (Mental Floss).