Clicky Ball Doohicky

[kbobam]

Forgive me if this has already been covered.  I don't remember.
I'm watching a show and here's this gizmo which I remember being very popular in my youth.
But they always had shiny steel balls.  Were these ever made with marbles or something similar?
These sure looked like marbles here, although the TV picture wasn't great and I couldn't be sure.

 

[Ric]

Newton's Cradle, I have only seen the steel balls too, but any balls of sufficient mass would work. I actually have an old marble bagatelle that utilizes the same principle to shoot one marble at a time from the top of stack.

[kbobam]

Thanks for the name, Ric!
We had Darwin recently, and now here's Newton.
I'm beginning to think that you find historical 'outside the box' brains interesting!
'Outside the Box' might not be a bad sub-category in the 'The Lounge' forum.  ( :

I just took another look at the video recording of this scene.  It looks a little
better than the 'still' I posted.  The balls seem to have distinct colors, and the
one on the right gives the impression of being a clear-based marble with a pattern.
Still 'iffy' though, and of course we're all sometimes guilty of seeing what we want to see.

I can't remember at all how the lines used to be attached to the balls.
Guessing there may have been at least a couple variations, depending on
how the manufacturer chose to balance different factors.
And if there are marble versions of the device, a different type of attachment
might be better suited for them than the steel ball way of doing it.
Starting to get vague and rambley!  I better shut up now! 

 

    

[Ric]

4 hours ago, kbobam said:

I'm beginning to think that you find historical 'outside the box' brains interesting!

No doubt, Bob, I am a confirmed nerd.

Here's an appropriate application of the conservation of momentum:

And it works remarkably well, with one or two marbles.

 

[kbobam]

Gotta like it!

Found some interesting stuff on the web, now that I'm armed with the proper name.
Newton's Cradle produced better results than Clicky Ball Doohicky for some reason! 

[Hoody]

What a nice documentation on that game. Really interesting.

 

Might it be an idea to shift this thread to the "marble runs & games" subforum?

[Steph]

I can do that.