{"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":"<p>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<figure id=\"attachment_9063\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9063\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9063 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/shaketable-pic-300x223.png\" alt=\"LEGO Shaketable\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/shaketable-pic-300x223.png 300w, http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/shaketable-pic-600x447.png 600w, http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/shaketable-pic.png 801w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9063\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">LEGO Shake Table powered by EV3 brick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>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<ul>\n<li>Be at least 18\u201d tall<\/li>\n<li>Have at least 2 \u201cfloors\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Have a base that is less than \u00bd a spaghetti stick wide<\/li>\n<li>Be able to protect a LEGO minifigure in an \u201cearthquake\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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<div style=\"clear: both;\"><\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9062\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9062\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9062 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/open-shaketable-300x224.png\" alt=\"Open LEGO shaketable displaying gear trains inside\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/open-shaketable-300x224.png 300w, http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/open-shaketable-600x448.png 600w, http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/open-shaketable.png 904w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9062\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">LEGO Shake Table: Under the Cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>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 <a title=\"LEGO Shake Table Code\" href=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/LEGO-Shake-Table-Code.zip\">code<\/a> for a random earthquake simulator and for one that starts slow and ramps up to top speed.<\/p>\n<p>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 <a title=\"Shake Table Building Instructions\" href=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Shake-Table-Building-Instructions.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> for building instructions!<\/p>\n<p>This design was created by Tufts University students Grace Olsen, Tara Watson, and Christian Proctor.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;\"><\/div>\n<h2>Video<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Shake table video\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XM-SPo7eLRA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Resources<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/LEGO-Shake-Table-Code.zip\">Shake Table EV3 Code<\/a> (10KB, EV3\/ZIP)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Shake-Table-Building-Instructions.pdf\">Shake Table Building Instructions<\/a> (3.7MB, PDF)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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. We used the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":9063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[152,143],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legoeng.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}