Bean machine

The machine consists of a vertical board with interleaved rows of pins. Balls are dropped from the top, and bounce randomly left and right as they hit the pins. Eventually, they are collected into one-ball-wide bins at the bottom. The height of ball columns in the bins approximates a bell curve.

See also

• pachinko

  External links

• Simulation of the bean machine at RAND
• A longer article on Sir Francis Galton and the bean machine
• Another simulation, with explanations http://www.ms.uky.edu/~mai/java/stat/GaltonMachine.html
• Yet another simulation, from John Carroll University