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A bouncy ball, power ball or super ball is a small polybutadiene rubber bouncing ball which rebounds proportionally to the amount of force used when thrown at a hard surface. Bouncy balls can bounce over three stories high when thrown at the ground. The first such ball was the proprietary Super Ball, and another was the larger, helium-filled Skyball.
The bouncy ball was patented in 1966 by a California chemist named Norman Stingley. In 1965, Stingley spent his spare time experimenting with rubber. He compressed various scraps of synthetic rubber together under about 3500 pounds per square inch of pressure. The result was a compressed rubber ball with an extreme resilience and high bounce.
In some countries, for example the United States and Denmark, they are often sold from bulk vending machines.