Galton Board

The board came very quickly and is a little bigger than expected (about 1 1/2 the height of a soda can and a little less than the width of two soda cans). I am very impressed by the quality. Although it is plastic, it feels decently tough and not cheap. Even the box that the board came in was pretty sturdy material. It reminds me of something you would find at the gift store of a science museum. No real problem with the balls rolling. Very fun to see it work (especially if you slightly tip it to the left or right while letting it do its thing). Ideal for a desk toy.

So in sequence I see a padded envelope on my front porch and immediately I'm worried. I pictured shattered plastic and scattered steel bird shot everywhere. However, I found a sturdy cardboard box that contained a shrink wrapped second sturdy box and my new Galton Board nestled in a cardboard cradle. Functioning was perfect. One caveat if you're a math teacher; the size of this demonstrator isn't suited to a classroom setting. It's very photogenic though so I could see this being the star of a homemade statistics 101 video. This isn't a toy for children since it is plastic and it contains 3000 steel balls around the size of grains of sand. Descriptions of the various functions and demonstrations are printed on the inner box. All in all I'm extremely happy with this low priced quincunx. I've wanted one of these for my own since I started studying statistical theory way back when.

I purchased my Four Pines Publishing Galton Board (GB) from Amazon about three weeks ago. It arrived in perfect condition. I am not a professional statistician; however, I have been involved in Monte Carlo code development and applications for many years, so I appreciate a good normal distribution. This GB provides a repeatable dynamic demonstration of how a normal distribution of many beads is produced by the random behavior of each bead, one at a time. "Order in apparent chaos" as written by Sir Francis Galton (1889). When I opened the shipping package, I found that the GB box itself is loaded with useful information printed on the outside about Sir Francis Galton, the Pascal triangle, Fibonacci numbers, and the Golden Ratio. Inside the box is a very nice 6 page pamphlet with additional information about the normal distribution, its standard deviation, the Central Limit Theorem (and regression to the mean), and facts about this GB: 3000 (steel) beads, 12 rows of pegs (in a quincunx geometric pattern), and 28 bead bins. This GB device itself is a good size for a desk (7.25x4.5x2.56 inches), is made of sturdy plastic, and is trivial to operate. It is very evident that significant effort was spent on the design and engineering of this GB. The rotating GB is made of clear plastic for easy viewing of the bead flow. This GB can be moved with one finger without knocking the device over. The beads bounce off of each peg randomly without ever getting stuck and always end up in one of the bead bins at the bottom creating the normal distribution of beads. Each GB board tilt cycle works without any bead flow problems in either direction. Although the GB is sturdy, it is not meant for rough treatment. The front face of the GB contains important information. The normal distribution curve is drawn on the face for easy comparison to the observed bead distribution. The 1, 2, and 3 sigma (standard deviation of the distribution of beads) lines are also drawn. The 2 sigma line is slightly misplaced, but that does not detract from the usefulness of the overall presentation. The Pascal triangle with the symmetric numbers of paths to get to each bead bin is also shown. The triangle apex is directly under the bead reservoir opening for bead flow visualization through the triangle. The rotating GB itself has very nearly the dimensions of a Golden Rectangle. The bottom of this GB base shows where to find many informative GB videos and mathematical facts, along with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) worksheets for students in grades 5th through 12th. This GB even has an Easter Egg: one brass bead that is a slightly different color from the steel beads. The brass bead is hard to find, but it is there (my wife found it first). It is interesting to see where the brass bead ends up after each GB cycle. The brass bead is unlikely to land in the same bead bin in successive GB cycles. My bottom line is that I am really enjoying this "Math in Motion" desktop statistical gadget. It is definitely a unique conversation piece. The GB is also a fun educational device that could spark interest in a STEM career for an undecided student. I highly recommend this GB to anyone with an interest in observing, learning about, and/or teaching the statistical behavior of many natural and other random phenomena.

As a big probability/statistics enthusiast, I love the Galton Board. It's a perfect visualization of the gaussian curve and a fun way to explain distributions to people. It's got lots of distinct visual features that illustrate other principles, especially for sigma/deviation and confidence intervals. Basically it's a desk widget and a teaching tool. That said, it's still very pricey for what you get. It's sturdy and packed very well, but fairly small and packed in with several haphazard flyers explaining the symbols and equations in messy small text. For this price, it would benefit from a clean single card or booklet to accompany it. Aside from that pickiness, I really love it. As a desktop ornament, it gets a lot of attention, questions, and is regularly "re-rolled" by passerby like a fortune wheel. It would be great to have simpler, handier text to keep alongside it.

This item was exactly what I expected - the base is a bit light but it still stands with no issues and is great to watch it sort out the balls. All balls are the same - some boards have a single ball that's a different color to show the randomness of any one ball, but this one are all the same color. Regardless, it's a great item and would make an excellent gift for any stats or math nerd in your life. Even the people I work with who aren't as obsessed with data as I am still think it's really cool and love flipping it to watch the balls fall into the normal distribution. Would absolutely recommend!

This really will teach you about probability distribution. You can also tell how "level" the toy is by how the balls fall in the curve. This is an example of a "Skew" that you might find in a survey. I really enjoy comparing a super level surface to one that is a little off. It also has a nice card that shows some other things you can learn from the toy. It also gets you some nerd street cred which -- you know -- who doesn't want that!!

This is a really nicely executed Galton board. Demonstrates a normal distribution as well as Pascal's triangle and Fibonacci numbers. Great gift for someone who likes probability and/or statistics. Could be used as a prop for instruction (it is small so would require video to display to a large class).