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• Magic Kaleidoscope: The Taiwanese manufacturer calls it Magic. We call it simple.
• The Chartres of Kaleidoscopes: Without doubt, the world's finest kaleidoscopic optics.
• Do-it-yourself kit: Everything you need except tape.

Not affiliated, YYY. But they are a good place to find toys and tools of all techs. Like, for example, wooden tops, those magnetic wheels on bent wire handles, chaos kits, etc.

One of the defendants is American Science and Surplus, which has long been a destination for geeks and hackers in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. It is a great source of weird bits and pieces which can complete just about any project.

I'ld recommend that you go with LEDs instead. Lots more flexibility. Far more options.
Let me give you a few of the links from the upcoming LED section of my site. (Yep, that was a plug.)

American Science and Surplus
Inner Mountain Outfitters
Gilway
Superbright LEDs
Overall you'll find that they'll work with any decent source of 3.5 to 6 volt (depending on the LED) current, which includes the cheesy little plug-in transformers that you can buy at Radio Shack. But they'll work better off battery power or some other means that is truly DC. I ran a tiny custom jobbie in my bathroom as a functional light source for weeks, all running off standard nine-volt batteries. I just turned it on and left it on to see how long it would last. These, BTW, were rebuilt versions of the LED-based clip-on lights that they sell for bike riders.
Of course if you've got a cheap supply of watch batteries or have a recharger for them then you could just hang photons about the place.
Lastly, if you're just going for cool low-level lighting, good old FLAME can be plenty of fun. In other words, don't dismiss the possibilities of oil lamps and such until you've tried them. Properly set up, especially if they're indirect, they give a just variable enough glow to be quite satisfying. I've also had fun with building custom lamps based on isopropyl alcohol. You know, the stuff sold for 99 cents a bottle to put on small cuts. A big (say, two inches around) alcohol flame in a deep container with a well setup oxygen supply will last for hours. Since the flame isn't very hot, is non-toxic, and blows out readily it's easy to experiment using things like soup bowls while you figure out what you want to do. Yo could cheat and go somewhere like Illuminations (I'm not providing a link, there are too many mall businesses as it is) and buy wicks, but you shouldn't need to bother.
And with all of this the fire department has only come by here once (damn those witnesses!).
Rustin

American Science and Surplus sells many small parts that could be used in robots. They have a whole "robot part" section.

They sell surplus equipment of just about every geek persuasion. Beakers to supermagnets to glow in the dark stickers to discounted microscopes from Russia. Periscopes from WWII Sherman Tanks, white coveralls (with a hood and an input for your oxygen tanks), with witty descriptions for every product.

Great for geeks, great for robots, great for halloween.

It's probably one of the funnest geek sites out there, check em out at sciplus.com.

It's an IR-controlled silver plastic spider with a bunch of cool features. One of which is the price -- only $26

I love looking at cool places that sell old junk. I always feel like I might get a deal. Reminds me of American Science & Surplus. I used to get thier catalogs all the time. I love thier hand drawn pictures. You would think they would have gotten a surplus digital camera to take pictures of stuff by now, but no, they still have drawings of the products. Coll!

Unaffiliated with, but deeply amused by, them.

In retrospect I have to say that my post just wasn't so great. I was giddy on the prospects of first post and just ran with my first thought. In retrospect I wish that I had taken the time to find some good devo links, the Free Monkeys people, and perhaps American Science and Surplus(supplies for the devolving, eh?). But I do say that the off topic attribute must have been given by a moderator hopped up on goofballs.