Abstract: Demonstrations using rotating tanks of fluid can help demystify otherwise counterintuitive behaviors of atmospheric, oceanic, and planetary interior fluid motions. But the expense and complicated assembly of existing rotating table platforms limit their appeal for many schools, especially those below the university level. Here, we introduce Do-It-Yourself Dynamics (DIYnamics), a project developing extremely low-cost rotating tank platforms and accompanying teaching materials. The devices can be assembled in a few minutes from household items, all available for purchase online. Ordering, assembly, and operation instructions are available on the DIYnamics website. Videos using these and other rotating tables to teach specific concepts such as baroclinic instability are available on the DIYnamics YouTube channel—including some in Spanish. The devices, lesson plans, and demonstrations have been successfully piloted at multiple middle schools, in a university course, and at public science outreach events. These uses to date convince us of the DIYnamics materials’ pedagogical value for instructors from well-versed university professors to K–12 science teachers with little background in fluid dynamics.

Multi-scale instabilities are ubiquitous in atmospheric and oceanic flows and are essential topics in teaching geophysical fluid dynamics. Yet these topics are often difficult to teach and counter-intuitive to new learners. In this paper, we introduce our state-of-the-art Do-It Yourself Dynamics (DIYnamics) LEGO® robotics kit that allows users to create table-top models of geophysical flows. Deep ocean convection processes are simulated via three experiments – upright convection, thermal wind flows, and baroclinic instability – in order to demonstrate the robust multi-scale modeling capabilities of our kit. Detailed recipes are provided to allow users to reproduce these experiments. Further, dye-visualization measurements show that the table-top experimental results adequately agree with theory. In sum, our DIYnamics setup provides students and educators with an accessible table-top framework by which to model the multi-scale behaviors, inherent in canonical geophysical flows, such as deep ocean convection.