During the Fall of 2002 the freshmen at the Colorado School of Mines worked on
designing of an inexpensive seismic system.  The details are given here:

http://www.jjlahr.com/science/psn/epics/

In December the best designs were selected and some of the students' 
reports are
posted here:
http://www.jjlahr.com/science/psn/epics/reports/

I will continue to add reports as I receive them.

Although none of the designs are ready to go as it, some of the teams are
continuing to make refinements this semester.  Over all this was a great
educational exercise, as the students have a gained a greater appreciation of
the difficulty of designing and then building a sensitive instrument.  Also
as they continue at CSM, they will learn how useful their math, physics,
and engineering courses would have been had they taken them prior to
trying to build a seismometer!  In their senior year, all of the CMS students
select an engineering project to work on.  I'm hoping that for some the 
challenge
of designing an inexpensive seismic sensor will remain, and that they
will apply their newly acquired skills to this topic once again.

Cheers,
John Lahr

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