Colorado State University

In this video, Donnie and Cecilia talk about how to build a Chladni Plate. This is a simple device that lefts you visualize waves. A speaker gets a plate vibrating, and some spots on the plate (antinodes) vibrate a lot while other places (nodes) don’t move at all. Sand or iron filings lets you see some awesome patterns.

Materials

• A speaker and a way to produce pure tones. We used an old speaker and a function generator, but you could use a bluetooth speaker and an app.
• A thin plate attached to the speaker. This can be any material and any shape.
• Tape, a bolt, or another way to attach the plate to the speaker
• Sand, salt, iron filings, or some other granular material