When I find something I like, I tell people about it. When I get payed for every person I convince to buy that something, I tell more people about it. For those two reasons, I want to tell you about NeoCubes, my new favorite time-wasting toy.
Each batch of NeoCubes includes 224 neodynium BBs and a faux velvet pouch. It's shockingly easy to lose track of time when you're playing with these addictive spheres. You can form them into anything: bands and rings, geometric shapes, flat patterns, or complex models. I've built a new model each time I've pulled them out of my pocket, and I'm not even close to the end of my creativity.
Here are a few of the models I built:
Eight-pointed star
Four-pointed star
Truncated octahedron
Truncated tetrahedron
Large bomb
Metal chu (my favorite)
I'm not the only one who enjoys them, either. After Christmas, I let a couple of my family members play with my set of 'cubes. Big mistake. After only a couple of minutes, even a close cousin would begin hunching over his 'cubes, casting suspicious glances at me, and mumbling to himself. Everybody came up with their own use for the NeoCubes: a cousin about my age used them to fashion herself bracelets and earings, but two younger cousins experimented with the interaction of rings of magnets on a smooth table. Even my seventy-nine-year-old grandfather enjoyed manipulating them with his fingers.
I carry my NeoCubes with me everywhere, pulling them out when my fingers become restless or when some metallic objects must be stuck together. Being a geek, both of these scenarios happen quite often.
You can buy a set of 224 NeoCubes for only $20 at Amazon. Compare that to about $70 if you purchase spherical magnets in bulk (I did). Buy some for you, your geeky friends, and everybody else you know and make me a rich man! If you're still not convinced, check out the demonstration video for the competing Buckyballs, but don't be fooled by the slick packaging and marketing. NeoCubes came out two years earlier, and they're $10 cheaper.
