The Rainbow Loom was invented by a former Nissan crash-test engineer, Cheong-Choon Ng, from Novi, Mich. He has two daughters who were making bracelets, but he couldn’t quite master them himself.

"We are selling 200,000 Rainbow Looms a month," Ng said. There are more than 100,000 videos on YouTube teaching kids how to use the loom and how to make the bracelets.

The former Wichitan who invented Rainbow Loom, one of the more popular toys on the planet, says his invention has helped make him worth about $40 million.

PS 87 has banned Rainbow Loom, the colorful make-them-yourself rubber band bracelets, because the fad is distracting and has led to fights on the playground, the principal said.

The heartwarming story of Rainbow Loom and how its inventor, Choon Ng, engineered one of the hottest fads since Beanie Babies using strategies he learned at Nissan. Choon Ng, a Malaysian immigrant ...

But the Rainbow Loom alone accounted for 2.9 percent of same-store sales growth last year, and Michaels sold the bracelet-making device for only six months of that period.