Science & Technology: Thinking Outside of the Toy Box

Four Children's Gizmos That Inspired Scientific Breakthroughs (Scientific American 2010-03-24)

Advances in science and technology can launch from unassuming springboards. In 1609 Galileo tweaked a toylike spyglass, pointed it at the moon and Jupiter (not the neighbors), and astronomy took a quantum leap. About 150 years later, Benjamin Franklin reportedly used a kite to experiment with one of the earliest-known electrical capacitors. Continuing that tradition, researchers reach back to childhood -- to Etch A Sketch, Lego, Shrinky Dink and Balloon within a Balloon -- to help them develop tiny transistors, study particle separation, make microfluidics devices, and fight cancer.