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Balancing 1

Meg and Mo need to hang their marbles so that they balance. Use the interactivity to experiment and find out what they need to do.

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Balancing 2

Meg and Mo still need to hang their marbles so that they balance, but this time the constraints are different. Use the interactivity to experiment and find out what they need to do.

Balancing 3

Stage: 3 Challenge Level: Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3 Challenge Level:3

Mo has gone home now, but she left her pouch of marbles with Meg.

Meg has hung Mo's pouch at a fixed point on the right of the balance, and is experimenting with her pouch of marbles on the left.

Meg has discovered that if she puts 8 marbles in her pouch when it is 100cm from the centre, then it balances with Mo's pouch.
Use the interactivity to explore this further.

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Fill in the table below to show how she can make it balance with different distances and different numbers of marbles.

Distance from
the centre
Number of
marbles
100cm 8
50cm
25cm
40cm


Explore this further.

Without using the interactivity, can you now work out how Meg would need to alter her pouch to balance it with Mo's?

Distance from
the centre
Number of
marbles
200cm
20cm
25
x cm
x

Try to explain how you worked it out.
The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities can be found here.
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NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.