New Video: Twisty Petz as an Application of Theoretical Balloon Twisting
I'm in love with this little children's toy that transforms between an animal and a bracelet. Is it because it embodies concepts of graph theory, or is it because sometimes they are sparkly unicorns? ...Yes.
Twisty Petz are back in style and I found one in a local store, but you can also make them at home using oblong beads and elastic string.
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In 2010 before my videos started going viral online, I frequently gave talks and workshops on using balloon twisting as a way into some mathematical ideas. You can make big fun things with balloons, and the mathematical ideas go from introductory questions about Eulerian paths all the way to the NP-completeness of efficient balloon graph decomposition.
You can find the paper that started it all in the proceedings of the 2008 Canadian Conference for Computational Geometry: https://cccg.ca/proceedings/2008/paper34full.pdf I have nostalgia for this conference because the CCCG is the very first math conference I ever went to in 2001, and I got hooked. I met a community there that I continued to see and find support from at future conferences, including the Demaines who would become my coauthors on this paper 7 years later!
I managed to find the original PDF (attached) for the printed booklet shown in the video, with practical instructions for mathematical balloon twisting, if you want to give that a try too after you're done having fun with Twisty Petz.
Also, hi! Happy July. I've got a special little not-math video coming on the 4th that I hope I will be able to finish in time (a fun one, and not on a topic I think anyone will expect).
🐌,
Vi
Twisty Petz as an Application of Theoretical Balloon Twisting (Vimeo)
Comments (9)
This was such a cute and fun video! Thank you for sharing. This is the quality content we need to combat a bunch of the unpleasant world news! Also absolutely here for "snake snake snake" 💜
Great video. I love that you keep sharing both joy and math with us. This twisting concept reminded me of math toy I had when I was a kid. It was a Vector Flexor, demonstrating something from Buckminster Fuller. It was a cuboctahedron with flexible joints that collapsed into an icosahedron.
Thank you, Vi. You are always an inspiration.
I became instantly obsessed with having one of these bracelets! What kind of store sells them? Thank you also for the bloon book!
I found them at my local toy store. I've seen they're also available online, and on ebay if you want the old ones from before the 2026 resurgence.
"Snake snake snake" just hurdled me back however many years. Those early YouTube days were the best...
At 2:20, wouldn't it only be for any rational wrist size?
It's a good fit, not necessary a perfect fit (which isn't itself a good fit, because you need to get it on/off the base of the hand)
I have always enjoyed your fun approach to math. Thank you :)