Fun Turntable Experiment

Exhibit Summary

Fun Turntable Experiment is a Interactive interactive exhibit in the Mechanics in Motion category, designed for science centers, children’s museums, discovery centers, STEM learning centers and family entertainment centers. Built as a hands-on, mechanical & electromechanical display, it turns an abstract scientific concept into direct, interactive visitor exploration, and is engineered for durable, low-maintenance, high-traffic gallery use.

Scientific Principle

Experience the fun of rotating motion (and collision). The moving trajectories of disks and balls on this rotating tabletop are unpredictable and fascinating, and also reveal why storm systems on weather maps tend to move along curves. As the disc and ball roll along a straight line on a rotating turntable, they appear to follow a curved path. This bending phenomenon exhibited by an object moving on a rotating surface is called the Coriolis force effect. The edge portion of this rotating table rotates faster than the center portion. When you place a disk on a table, it starts spinning at the speed at that location on the table. The disk maintains this rotational speed as it moves via the outer region where it rotates faster, bending in the opposite direction to the direction of rotation. The Earth's rotation produces a similar deflection effect on the movement of air in the atmosphere and water in the oceans. This is why you often view hurricanes, nor'easters, and other weather systems moving along curved paths on weather maps. This is why wind circulates around the center of a storm.

Operation