{"id":9060,"date":"2014-08-12T23:30:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T13:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/?p=9060"},"modified":"2015-12-18T23:24:55","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T12:24:55","slug":"shake-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/shake-table\/","title":{"rendered":"Shake table"},"content":{"rendered":"
Did you know that it\u2019s possible to build an earthquake simulator out of only LEGO bricks? This is a cool teaching tool that my partners and I developed for a week-long civil engineering kids\u2019 camp. It requires two EV3 kits (or one plus two large motors) and a quantity of LEGO bricks.<\/p>\n We used the shake table in a discussion about material properties. The challenge was this: students were given raw spaghetti, marshmallows, and cheeseballs and were told to build a structure that must:<\/p>\n The main objective was for students to discover that cheeseballs, a brittle material, was better for supporting weight in a static structure, but marshmallows, which have greater ductility, were more likely to withstand dynamic loading from an earthquake.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve already got the kit and the LEGO bricks, this is your cheapest solution to building your own home-made shake table. The table can be coded in LEGO MINDSTORMS. So far, we have developed MINDSTORMS EV3 code<\/a> for a random earthquake simulator and for one that starts slow and ramps up to top speed.<\/p>\n Building the shake table itself is an exercise in using gear trains, translating rotational motion into linear motion, and combining power sources to run the same gears. Click here<\/a> for building instructions!<\/p>\n This design was created by Tufts University students Grace Olsen, Tara Watson, and Christian Proctor.<\/p>\n\n
Video<\/h2>\n