Galton Board

I purchased my Four Pines Publishing Galton Board (GB) from Amazon about three weeksago. It arrived in perfect condition. I am not a professional statistician; however, I have beeninvolved in Monte Carlo code development and applications for many years, so I appreciatea good normal distribution. This GB provides a repeatable dynamic demonstration of how anormal distribution of many beads is produced by the random behavior of each bead, oneat 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 withuseful 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 pamphletwith 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 designand engineering of this GB. The rotating GB is made of clear plastic for easy viewingof 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 upin one of the bead bins at the bottom creating the normal distribution of beads. Each GBboard tilt cycle works without any bead flow problems in either direction. Although the GBis sturdy, it is not meant for rough treatment.The front face of the GB contains important information. The normal distribution curve isdrawn on the face for easy comparison to the observed bead distribution. The 1, 2, and 3sigma (standard deviation of the distribution of beads) lines are also drawn. The 2 sigmaline is slightly misplaced, but that does not detract from the usefulness of the overallpresentation. The Pascal triangle with the symmetric numbers of paths to get to each beadbin is also shown. The triangle apex is directly under the bead reservoir opening for beadflow visualization through the triangle. The rotating GB itself has very nearly the dimensionsof a Golden Rectangle. The bottom of this GB base shows where to find many informativeGB videos and mathematical facts, along with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, andMath) 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 thesteel beads. The brass bead is hard to find, but it is there (my wife found it first). It isinteresting to see where the brass bead ends up after each GB cycle. The brass bead isunlikely 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 couldspark interest in a STEM career for an undecided student. I highly recommend this GB toanyone with an interest in observing, learning about, and/or teaching the statistical behaviorof many natural and other random phenomena.

Galton board - why does one need it? Well, it's a very nice "toy" with a mathematical background: the very interesting Gaussian curve of the normal distribution,. Having said that ... I have to admit, that it might be rather a present for someone who's keen on maths. I do like maths (always did) and for me the Galton board is something like the Newton's Cradle: Having put it on my desk, I do flip it from time to time ... ;-)Maybe a little warning: There is an "Import Fees Deposit", which cost in this case additional 10 bucks. I live in Austria - therefore I had to pay about 55 bucks for my Galton Board - that includes all of the fees. Since Amazon did state it in the ordering process, I did know everything beforehand. No problem around here.

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!

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 is beautifully made, and is a beautiful physical demonstration of the normal distribution. The overlay of Pascal’s triangle and the equations add some great levels of additional info. The packaging is sturdy and the accompanying literature is great. It’s a bit pricier than I would like, but it’s hard to argue with the quality- and the lack of alternatives on the market. So glad they made this.

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!!