Structures like 'Sky Crashing Sea,' a prototype ocean observatory, were the goal of early research.

It all began with a toy and a balloon.

The toy: TensegriToy. The Balloon: one of those aluminized film jobs that was given to my wife for her birthday.

TensegriToy launched me into exploration of tensegrity structures pioneered by Buckminster Fuller and Kenneth Snelson. I plowed through reams of materials and built countless models. I became convinced that structures relying on tension for strength had many advantages over compression-based structures. Then along came the balloon. I was impressed by its durability, light weight, and complete reliance on tensional material containing the moving gas for its structure.

For my son's birthday that winter, I bought him a 4" film balloon, and myself a spare to play with. I was timid at first, squeezing it with a 20 lb. weight. It held! Then I decided to stand on it. Though it gave a little bit, it held me. I then discovered that by reinforcing the balloon with strapping tape, I could create a very light, very strong structural element. I could not break it even when stomping on it with all my might.

I decided then to build a geodesic structure of these light, strong balloons taped together. The result was the first balloon-face polyhedron in the world. I could stand on the ball, with it only deforming a bit and recovering its initial shape gracefully. I could evacuate the center of it to 11 psi of vacuum with slight change in shape. These structures really worked!

As I built larger and larger models, my son wanted to play with them. He and his friends had a great time, but kept puncturing the balloons. I needed something besides tape to hold these together so that I could replace them easily when punctured.

Velcro-brand fasteners to the rescue!

Velcro-brand fasteners to the rescue! I was thrilled with the result, and admired the glittering jewel. Then my son grabbed it from me and clapped his hands forcefully on it. Kablaam! The balloons flew everywhere! My son was so overjoyed that my wife then and there convinced me that I needed to focus on building a durable toy based on the concept. “The structure ideas are fine, but the toy is great!”

From there, it took quite a bit of experimentation to develop the exact configuration we now use in our BafaBalls^TM. We wanted to preserve the light-weight fun of balloons that could be built into structures, but toughen them up to take lots of rugged play. We are now happy to bring you BafaBall^TM in limited quantities built of the best materials we could find: Tough polyurethane-coated nylon covers, sewn-on dual-color Velcro-brand fasteners, and aluminized nylon film balloons for bladders.

We've put many years and loads of commitment into every BafaBall^TM we sell. We hope you are thoroughly pleased with the result.