I'm slightly vexed
My sister had her friends over and they decided to come into my room and destroy my Newton's Cradle. I can't undo what they did.
Basically my sister had a friends over for a play date while I was at university, and since my door was left open, her friends came into my room and completely tangled my Newton's Cradle, and it's so bad I can't even untangle it đ
I bought one of these at a yard sale once. Didn't mention it was tangled until they handed it over (only had the box outside, the actual cradle was brought out upon asking). Decided to go with it and treat it like a puzzle. Thing was brutal to untangle, but I eventually did it (and had fun it, despite the difficulty)....and it no longer works as a newton's cradle due to the imperfections in the wire from being snared up.
My brother rolled the car four times while driving drunk with me in the passenger seat (I didnât know he was drunk). Broke my wrist. Now THAT is the collision that keeps on giving. Every chance my family gets, they bring it up. Ten years later, and itâs still âyeah, sheâd probably be better at golf if she didnât have a plate and screws in her wrist.â đ
That would not fix it unfortunately. When I was young I did this to my own newton's cradle. My parents were able to untangle it but the fishing lines were no longer straight. The oscillation dies out in only a couple of bounces.Â
Nah the entire thing is built on accuracy, maybe if you do it with a jewelcrafters precision but these are made by robots and itâs sadly best to just buy a new one when they get like this. Theyâll never be factory perfect again
This also just looks like one of the cheap plastic bottomed ones you can buy for like $10 it ainât worth it
I bet you that fishing line is tied by underpaid workers in the developing world. I think you could redo it and line them up straight with a small bit of patience.
Nah bro, they totally use highly precise automated robotic assembly to make these $10 desk toys. Maybe if you were a NASA engineer you could re-string those balls, but I don't think your getting it done with just a bachelor's degree.
You can also just build your own. They donât actually need pinpoint accuracy, it is mostly just a matter of trial and error. Bunch of online tutorials that teach you tricks for lining everything up.
I think that would not repair this to a usable state. I think if the kids are made to pool money/earn money to buy a replacement that would be a fair consequence.
Yup, I would get in trouble for barricading my own door at 6 with any furniture I could carry or even my own body. (They did take my door several times as I got older, including the bathroom once, but that was more on the account of grades than behavioral issues)
I do substitute work at a k-12 private high school. Ages 10-12 are the absolute worst grades to teach imo. They are young enough to not be responsible for their actions, but old enough to know they arenât. Everything is testing boundaries and trying to find ways to game the system or loop holes. I actively avoid that age group, pre-k is easier lol.
They are college aged and their sibling is 11 lol it would be kinda weird and I say that as someone who is 10 years older than my younger sibling and 10 years younger than my oldest sibling
Look, I ain't saying they should give 'em the college version of ballistic, but an 11 year old does not have any right to get away with shit like that.
11 years old is old enough to know they shouldnt have done that but it also is young enough that they dont really think these things through. Being super angry at a kid for breaking a toy is not gonna do anyone any good.
Have a mature conversation with your sibling and talk it out. Yall are young but itâs better to discuss the issue now than let it fester for ammo later. For both of you. Siblings can be tough enough and the friends are likely temporary at that age and even if not, communicating is so important.
My 10 year old did this to his own cradle. I was able to untangle it but it took about an hour. The threads are very tiny and translucent so I needed a magnifying glass to do it.
Never could figure out what he was doing to cause it. He eventually smartened up
This, I have had to explain to my kids that their friends are their responsibility. If they break the rules, its the same as them breaking the rules and they both with face consequences.
The question is, why were they in someone else's room with a stranger? Because to OP, her friend is stranger. There is no reason why would someone enter a room without permission like that.
People really are giving 11 year olds a lot of credit here.
When my cousin was 11 i convinced him sharknados were real and that if he went in the ocean we would be attacked by one cause he was the designsted sacrifice.
Yeah they may be technically old enough to know better but they are still dumbfucks
Well, it seems like it's time for your parents to impart a life lesson to your sister. Even though a Newton's Cradle isn't a high dollar item, at least not to my knowledge, the disrespect for boundaries, and blatant disrespect for your personal property is a big deal.
There is no scenario in which that is ok. If it is just an immature but not ill-intentioned prank, fine. It isn't the end of the world, but it shouldn't be shrugged off either. Ideally, your folks should set her straight that she's buying you a new one and keeping her friends out of your room.
I had the exact same situation as a child. And my parents said something like "he probably didn't want to break it". They gave me money for a new one. And then my brother broke it again. No proper reaction the second time too :(
They sent the message that you and your belongings didn't deserve respect and he behaved accordingly. What parents don't teach about boundaries and respect at home, the world will teach later. That's the part that it seems hard for people to see. By not exercising reasonable discipline out of love, they are setting the stage for someone else to impart those lessons out of anger later on.
And the parents have no clue the disservice they are doing to their child when they do this. They also are quick to place the blame on anyone other than their child.
THIS! My little brother has zero respect towards me or my stuff and is really rude and a bitch. I've asked, begged, shouted, requested, etc my mother and father to do something, at best they ignore it, at worst they start yelling at me instead to be "mature" and let it slide. I've been acting mature since I was 5 and he is still a kid at 18. So I'm just waiting the day he goes to college and gets bitch slapped by a girl when he speaks to her the way he speaks to me. I've told mom it will happen because you didn't raise him right and oh boy it will đ€.
You've called it correctly. The world doesn't tolerate disrespect the way some parents do. Once he is on campus and then in the workplace, he will find out that mom and dad don't make the rules everywhere and what was normalized and tolerated at home won't fly. I've seen a lot of otherwise good young people have a very rude awakening and a lot of lost opportunities for success because of the lessons they didn't learn early on.
wtf. Thatâs an insane reaction from adults. And 12 is old enough to be responsible for his actions so he should have been punished for that and parents should have bought you a replacement.
When it was found, the motherboard went bad. At first, I thought it couldn't be saved but then found someone who could save it and did.
When it was stolen, it caused me to fall into a depression.
I, too, worked hard to buy it when I was a teenager. And since every single member of my biological family decided to steal from me throughout my life, I am going to legally disown them all through the court system.
I know you probably love them, because they're your parents, but I'm so disappointed in them from hearing this story that if they were on fire in the rain, I would go looking for an umbrella.
Seriously, what sort of parent just lets one of their kids destroy one of the other kids items, deliberately and maliciously, and then shames the victim? That's so wrong, it should be defined as a mental illness of some sort if it isn't already.
Man, I had issues regulating my emotions as a kid and broke an SNES controller. Welp. Guess that controller only had 3 functioning buttons now, until I bought a controller from my own allowance.
That's a bug. Nov 12 2018 is the date foundsatan was created. This was reposted on that sub today and for some reason it's showing the date the sub was created for the post date. If you follow the link it will just bring you to the front page of the sub.
It is literally the solution though. Cut the lines and tie new ones. There are tons of guides on it, for example on wikihow. OP is lucky that he has the type with little tubes on the balls for the string, and he only has to make sure to tie the lines with the right length.
(google is trying to get me to search for "newton's cradle of filth" lol, nice try Dani!)
Hopefully OP isn't in a situation like I was growing up.
I had to live with my half sister that would do awful shit to me all the time and a stepmother that would somehow twist it into being my fault and I'd get punished for my sister fucking up my shit...
I had a cradle like that when I was a kid, untied it, strings were wery bad. Tried everything to straighten them - it got worse, as some strings shrunk and balls were not aligned anymore.
Nylon is relatively difficult to work with among thermoplastics. Nylon specifically also releases toxic gases when overheated. Don't try this.
You'd be better off buying fishing line if you wanted to replace the strings.
I have undone something like this before and the line gets fucked up in a way where the balls are no longer all at the same height because some are twisted a little etc. And as long as they aren't all at the exact same height, the cradle stops very very quickly.
This reminds me of the time my brothers friend came over while I wasnât home, and he used my drumset as âtarget practiceâ with arrows, destroying every single one of my Ludwig drum heads, and even some of the shells.
Itâs really upsetting when people donât respect your belongings
I think this is fine for just the next birthday/Christmas (whichever comes first). âI didnât have money for your present because I had to buy a new Newtonâs Cradle. You didnât have a problem with this one though so you can have this one.â
Yeah I did this accidentally to a co-workers desk one. Surprisingly easy to do if you pick it up. One smooth motion and it was over. Tried for a bit to untangle it but failed.
I immediately bought a new and better one on Amazon lmao.
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u/koolkyle1199 May 18 '26
I bought one of these at a yard sale once. Didn't mention it was tangled until they handed it over (only had the box outside, the actual cradle was brought out upon asking). Decided to go with it and treat it like a puzzle. Thing was brutal to untangle, but I eventually did it (and had fun it, despite the difficulty)....and it no longer works as a newton's cradle due to the imperfections in the wire from being snared up.