Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Experiments With A Galton Board, Christopher Oshman

Theses

Galton boards have been used for over a half-century as a tool to illustrate the formation of Gaussian shaped distributions as well as the Central Limit Theorem. Here, the Galton board was used to study the spontaneous percolation of a particle through an ordered array of rigid scatterers. The apparatus that was designed and fabricated provided a means to release 1/8" diameter spheres one at a time in a controlled and precise manner at any location on the board. The three experimental variables used in these experiments were the particle material, the release height, and the board tilt. angle. The …