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by apathy 2554 days ago
I bought one of these to teach a one-shot class on experimental design and statistics.

To say it served the purpose would be an understatement. We blew through the CLT and derivation of statistical power in 10 minutes, leaving the other 110 minutes for the students to present research papers. One of the best $35 I’ve ever spent (don’t have the Amazon link handy but there are some great versions there). Highly recommended if you teach.

4 comments

I really wish I had teachers who used some visual tools to teach these concepts. More than the concept itself, it is the feeling of awe that one gets when one watches these things. It is easy to forget that a lot of math comes to describe phenomenon in nature! The right teacher at a young age can have a radical impact on kids picking up STEM.
If you can post a link to a good one I'd appreciate it. I've generally found expensive ones and bad ones. I've been looking for one that's cheap and good.
As others said, if you can post a link that would be really great. When I've taught probability in years past, I always showed students Galton boards on YouTube, but a real one that doesn't break and doesn't break the budget would be much better.
You can just search Amazon. There's nothing special about a quincunx, they're simple. Any search query on Amazon, whether 'Galton quincunx' or 'Galton bean machine' or 'Galton board' will pull up a bunch, I just checked.
How exactly does a Galton board blow through the CLT ?