As part of EPFL’s School Days, RESSLab (Resilient Steel Structures Laboratory) opens its doors to school classes for a guided tour of the laboratory. The goal is to provide students a concrete, accessible introduction to earthquake engineering research, and to show how engineers design structures that can withstand earthquakes.
The visit unfolds in three steps: a short presentation to set the scene, a tour of the laboratory, and a hands-on activity to observe for themselves how a building behaves during an earthquake.
How the visit works
1. Introductory presentation
The visit opens with a short PowerPoint presentation, pitched at a level adapted to the students’ age. It introduces RESSLab’s research themes in simple, visual terms: why earthquakes are dangerous for buildings, and how engineers work to make them more resistant.
© Erik Marmor / Flash90, 8 février 2023.
2. Laboratory tour
Students then get to explore the laboratory itself: the testing equipment, the specimens and mock-ups currently being tested, and the facilities used day to day by RESSLab researchers.
© Lise Bachmann
3. Hands-on activity: build and shake a model building
The visit ends with a hands-on activity: students use a MOLA kit to build their own small model building, which is then placed on a shake table that reproduces the motion of an earthquake. This playful experiment lets them directly observe how their structure behaves under seismic shaking, reinforcing what they learned during the presentation.
© Mola Structural Kit
Practical information
- Audience: 5-6H, 7-8H
- Visit duration: 1 hour
- Group size: up to 30 students
- Contact / booking: [email protected]