Thames & Kosmos Gumball Machine Maker Lab - Build Machines with Physics & Engineering Lessons | 12 Experiments | Make Your Own Gumball Machines | Includes Gumballs | Award Winner

Product Features

The Parts

The plastic building pieces include a variety of track segments and additional parts that can be moved around on the base of the machine to create an almost limitless number of different gumball machines. Add a pulley lift, pendulum, rubber band trampoline, dominoes, and more to get the gumballs performing all sorts of cool stunts. The storage globe with dispenser is compatible with standard machine-size, 16-mm (5/8-inch) gumballs, and the kit comes with a small supply of these gumballs to get you started!

The Manual

The 16-page, full-color manual guides you through step-by-step illustrated instructions for assembling the base of your gumball machine as well as three unique setups using the 12 different track segments. Once you've mastered these three specific setups and have learned how the system works, you can design, build, and test your own configurations! Trial-and-error experiments teach in a fun, hands-on way: When you try a new design, will your gumball make it to the end of the track, or will you have to reengineer it to make it work? Can you make a gumball machine in which the gumballs make it to the bottom every single time they are dispensed?

The Stunts & Tricks

The real fun of this kit is in the stunts and tricks the gumballs can perform! Add pieces like a pendulum, pulley cups, funnel, trampoline, pinball launcher, and domino track to your machine to see these wacky stunts in action. Each segment of the track offers a new stunt and teaches a different lesson in physics, allowing users to explore topics including force, motion, momentum, gravity, energy, simple machines, and more. After you've built your gumball machine, a turn of the handle dispenses one gumball at a time out of the clear plastic storage globe and down the tracks. The gumballs lands in a collection cup and can easily and sanitarily be returned to the globe for another run.