Final Design

The cradle has been used for over a year of demonstrations without any problems aside from a couple cracked balls. Thankfully since we only use the cradle with a set of 16 balls we have 4 spares. When not in use we can easily "fly" the cradle up into the rafters by removing just the balls, clipping the lower ends of all the cables together and hooking them up in the ceiling.

The cradle is a huge hit with crowds of all ages and works well with the tradition of the Group where students can come in and physically play with the demonstration pieces. It's great for all ages and is exceptionally good for learning disabled students who can easily manipulate the large balls and get a easily tangible result from their input. Even if they don't grasp the more advanced concepts of the physics involved, they don't care, they're having a blast just playing with such a massive toy.


The cradle is to our knowledge the largest Newton's Cradle in the world. Because of this we're working on going through the process to get it into the Guinness Book of World Records and have already been featured in the famous scavenger hunt from the University of Chicago, which was won by Snell-Hitchcock (who are also the group that "found us" for the scavenger hunt).





When originally constructed the cradle was built to the largest dimensions that would fit in the room. The primary limitation was the ceiling height. In the 2008 season we are working to secure a larger facility for the cradle and rebuild it to an even larger setup with higher-weighted balls and many more of them. We hope to not only set a world's record with this, but to break our own existing record.