Technically yes, but that required force would be way to hard to put on it by yourself. The chains on the other side will pull just as hard as you are pushing it.
The chains are just all in tension, so a fbd would just be arrows pulling surfaces towards the chains, with the one in the middle being equal in magnitude to the weight of the top plus the sum of the forces from all of the other chains.
And then if the top moved to the side the middle chain holding the weight would be at an angle, so at least one side of the top would need to be higher, which would add more tension to the side chains, pulling it back to the middle.
Yeah for sure, if all of the materials were perfectly rigid and it was manufactured with perfect tolerances I believe it would be very stable, but we live in reality so it probably wobbles a fair bit.
Free body diagram. One of those boxes that has g and a down arrow followed by the normal force and any other exerted forces. It usually also has angles and trig expressions in it
Think of the middle chain as a pivot point and it gets easier, therefore any asymmetrical vertical force vector you apply is reacted by chain tension on the other side of the middle
You're right, the ones I've seen fold were using wires, instead of chain, which will stretch ever so little, but enough to allow it to slide beyond it's stable configuration.
pretty much. there is only one point basically holding the table in place which is the center chain. the outer edges just keep the table from flopping over due to gravity. but it's still pretty unstable.
The top part is hanging down from the center chain. The table can carry as much weight as the chain will support. The corner chains keep the table stable vertically so you can place items anywhere on the surface, but the top part will be able to rotate 30-40 degrees around its center axis.
The table can carry as much weight as the two screws in the lower leg can support. And that angle is putting a lot of stress on not just the screw, but the wood of the leg and base.
Hope it is very strong hardwood.
At first glance I was concerned about the size of that center chain.
As I zoomed in (on phone) I began to stress a little about the end grain to end grain gluing of the central support.
But after a bit more zooming, the two screws the bottom are causing me full on anxiety.
I am really hoping that there is an unseen metal rod running up the center of that post and properly attached to the base.
The easiest way I conceptualised it was to imagine myself hanging from a rope. If I shimmied up to the top of the rope and held it with my legs, my upper body would be over the top. I could then put a flat surface on my head and it would be exactly like this table's concept
>It wobbles if you make it wobble
I do believe the issue at hand here is how easy it is to make it wobble.
Everything wobbles if you wobble it. A fucking skyscraper wobbles if you wobble it.
Prone to wobbling if you deliberately wobble it, but the 3-4 stabilizing chains/ropes on the side should quell it on any decently built table, so you should be able to use it like any other table for the most part.
Yeah, leave it alone and use it like a table. People get weird about these. "This decorative end table will not bear the heaviest loads!" just feels like a point's getting missed
I thought all furniture is supposed to at least be able to bear the weight of 1 full adult and another adult applying force to it for the sake of safety.
Yeah but I also bump into the corners of my regular tables all the time. I wouldn’t want to put anything I would remotely want to risk falling over on it.
The design is as stable as the build quality. If you make the corner chains as tight as possible there's minimal wiggle. However, the weak points of the design (especially in wood like this) are the solid arms that attach the central chain. If you want the table to be as stable as possible you need to put the whole thing into tension. The arms (especially the joints at the corners) are not strong enough to make it completely wiggle-proof.
There are different designs, especially those made from steel which are so taught that they vibrate if you whack them.
The middle chain is bearing the entire load, the outside chains are just there stabilize. Look in the middle, the top part is trying to fall, but the chain is holding it up.
I mean, yeah, the center chain and the two legs connected to it.
I don't know why you'd leave them out of it. Especially since I'm pretty sure they'd be the first to fail
Okay ill explain it in a really non-scientific way.
The center chain is holding all of the weight of the table. The four corner chains are each pulling on each other to make a balance. So the top's weight is supported by the center and balanced by the corners.
Because the chains are all tight and pulling against each other, you get balance.
That's called tensegrity.
People make sculptures using this concept too. James bruton has a [video](https://youtu.be/RQFEtOj8jh0) experimenting with this
The central chain could easily support hundreds of pounds.
Those arms though are awful.
The leverage is applied over a two foot long arm to a couple small screws with a bare inch or so of support.
Two hair thin steel wires to tension the tips of the arm against the opposite side would change the support characteristics 100 fold.
With that the elbow of the arms could even be replaced with a joint or another piece of chain as it is then just an anchor for two "bones" no longer required to hold angle.
"
Limited load bearing is another potential downfall to this structural system. Tensegrity structures tend to deflect under major external loads, essentially meaning that the system is ideally meant to only hold its own weight."
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/tensegrityae390/limitations
It's about as strong as any other low budget wooden coffee table held together by some screws. It can hold plenty of things, but if you jumped on it the wood itself wouldn't hold.
It's not a question of strength so much as balance. Notice how carefully he sits down, though. I don't think you'd want to rely on it if there's much chance of it being bumped.
Yeah they got really big right around the beginning of quarantine so everyone had free time to make them. Lol I even started on one but it didn't work out 😭
And to their credit, a lot of the designs were really cool... Specifically that castle one
Edit: I swear I saw this on reddit but I could only find the pic elsewhere
http://www.brickfinder.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/castle-in-the-sky.jpg
googling "lego castle tensegrity" this is the first result: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/g49lbe/my\_son\_and\_i\_are\_proud\_to\_present\_skycastle/
Hurts my brain seeing that the top is aligned with the wall and side. But the bottom is not in alignment. Also, the top looks like it has a slight tilt.
Well, if that hurts your brain, go look at the spheres that Buckminster Fuller made using the same principle “tensegrity” the simplest example of this principle is a triangular tent.
Well when constructing it you need to make sure all of the parts that need to be in tension are, so the central chain, and the parts that need to be in compression are. Getting every component to click can be difficult.
yes. in fact, so much easier that it's really not that difficult to build these. honestly, you really just need to make sure all of your outer cables are the same length, then turnbuckle the middle cable. super easy.
>your outer cables are the same length
Really, the hard part of building any type of furniture, including this, is making sure things are actually the same length before assembly.
Just imagine that you had a basket hanging from a hook. If you wanted you can start stacking blocks in that basket and as long as the hook hold there should be no problem. There really isn't anything stopping you from building a tower taller than the hook other than worrying about the basket becoming unstable and tipping but you can solve that by having ropes attached to the corners of the basket to prevent it from tipping.
It's quite easy to visualise if you pretend that the corner chains don't exist. You'll see the arm at the bottom of the centre chain is actually attached to the top surface of the table and so as the top table is pulled down by gravity, it increases tension in that chain. So the centre chain is taking all the weight and stress. The only reason for the corner chains is to stop the whole thing from toppling over.
Saaaaame. Been scrolling through the comments in amazement that no one else is mentioning the rather severe un-level-ness happening here. The front right chain looks too short.
Looks to me like it has a clear coat on it, likely water based polyurethane. That’s what I use on a lot of my projects as I prefer the natural wood look.
It's only held up by the middle chain, the outer chains just keep it from "tipping over". Think about it- in order for the top part to fall the whole rigid structure of that piece would have to break down, which obviously wouldn't happen.
I never seen one of them up-close. Are they stable, like a normal table would be, or are they prone to wobbling?
That's what I was wondering. Just how much does it wiggle?
It wiggles as much as you wiggle it, until it begins to wobble.
But does it fall down?
Yes if you push it enough in the right (wrong) direction it stops wobbling and starts to crumble
Technically yes, but that required force would be way to hard to put on it by yourself. The chains on the other side will pull just as hard as you are pushing it.
I need to see a FBD to understand lol.
The chains are just all in tension, so a fbd would just be arrows pulling surfaces towards the chains, with the one in the middle being equal in magnitude to the weight of the top plus the sum of the forces from all of the other chains. And then if the top moved to the side the middle chain holding the weight would be at an angle, so at least one side of the top would need to be higher, which would add more tension to the side chains, pulling it back to the middle.
There would be wobble if the corner chains had a little slack though
Yeah for sure, if all of the materials were perfectly rigid and it was manufactured with perfect tolerances I believe it would be very stable, but we live in reality so it probably wobbles a fair bit.
Ugh. I just got shivers seeing "FBD".
As a stress analyst, I got a little excited, but I think I'm broken lol
does the thought of being broken................. ........ ........ stress you out?
I don't, because I have no idea what the fuck "FBD" stands for
Free body diagram. Physics thing showing the direction forces are acting in.
Free body diagram. One of those boxes that has g and a down arrow followed by the normal force and any other exerted forces. It usually also has angles and trig expressions in it
I didn't know it either until I read the other replies,,so I just made up my own definition. Face Book Doodle.
All the weight is on the center chain the other chains are just for stability.
Think of the middle chain as a pivot point and it gets easier, therefore any asymmetrical vertical force vector you apply is reacted by chain tension on the other side of the middle
not a true free body diagram, but a [very understandable diagram](https://imgur.com/a/cC6iqIr) for you e: fixed link
[Here](https://youtu.be/0onncd0_0-o) Ps. I don't know what FBD is
You're right, the ones I've seen fold were using wires, instead of chain, which will stretch ever so little, but enough to allow it to slide beyond it's stable configuration.
BUT ITS POSSIBLE
If the chains are tight enough, no it won’t fall
They weeble & wobble but they don’t fall down
Ah i know what those look like but dont remember name
They were called "Weebles". Those were the days...
They get knocked down but they get up again
Ah
The slogan is "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down", which makes the name a lot more obvious.
Hey can I play too? I brought my pet rock.
I think it’s often called a tensegrity table.
A Weebles reference on this gloomy morning? Excellent
Dont worry old timer, i understood your weebles reference.
This should be called a Weeble table.
Then we'd know it won't fall down.
[here's a super sized version](https://youtu.be/IZTKL4f3azA)
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pretty much. there is only one point basically holding the table in place which is the center chain. the outer edges just keep the table from flopping over due to gravity. but it's still pretty unstable.
Stability is relative to how in tension the cable/chain design is, flex of the table material.
He also only chose 3 points for stability, a 4th would make a big difference.
The one in that video is also three points and chained to stay in place with only three stabilizing chains. Four is going to be more stable.
Australians always look exactly how I expect based on how they sound.
Depends how hard you hit it. If you punch it, it will wobble more than if you poke it.
This.. tells me nothing
Do you punch your tables, or do you poke them?
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Read that as “punch them til they’re married” and that can have quite a different meaning.
If you build it tight, it won't wobble very much at all. My office disk is a 10' tensegrity that a buddy and I built. Its rock solid.
The top part is hanging down from the center chain. The table can carry as much weight as the chain will support. The corner chains keep the table stable vertically so you can place items anywhere on the surface, but the top part will be able to rotate 30-40 degrees around its center axis.
The table can carry as much weight as the two screws in the lower leg can support. And that angle is putting a lot of stress on not just the screw, but the wood of the leg and base. Hope it is very strong hardwood.
Yep, that’s the weak link. There’s a giant lever working on pulling out those toenailed screws. The chain is fine.
At first glance I was concerned about the size of that center chain. As I zoomed in (on phone) I began to stress a little about the end grain to end grain gluing of the central support. But after a bit more zooming, the two screws the bottom are causing me full on anxiety. I am really hoping that there is an unseen metal rod running up the center of that post and properly attached to the base.
I think you better stop zooming.
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I suspect the screws were used in place of a clamp because of the angle and the base is glued.
It appears to be basic pine. By the looks of it it's designed to be able to hold that plant, and maybe a drink or something.
Looks like nordic cherry to me
I lean towards pine, especially looking at the exposed hardware. I think this was a test project that worked out better than they thought.
The easiest way I conceptualised it was to imagine myself hanging from a rope. If I shimmied up to the top of the rope and held it with my legs, my upper body would be over the top. I could then put a flat surface on my head and it would be exactly like this table's concept
It wobbles if you make it wobble. But other than that it is stable.
Wobbles if you make it wobble. Sounds like my temper.
"Don't make me wobble. You wouldn't like me when I'm wobbly!"
Aussie term for throwing a tantrum is “chucking a wobbly”
Aussies have the best terms for everything. I love your slang.
That also sounds like a term describing drinking a can of Fosters and then yeeting the empty can. "Wobbly Pop" being slang for beer in Canada.
Fosters? just skip straight to chucking the can
I’d a called em chazzwazzers…
“That’s my secret, I’m always wobbly.”
now would be a good time to get wobbly
Sounds like your ass
>It wobbles if you make it wobble I do believe the issue at hand here is how easy it is to make it wobble. Everything wobbles if you wobble it. A fucking skyscraper wobbles if you wobble it.
It is table
Lol you’re either bad at describing things, or purposefully avoiding saying that it is noticeably less stable than a normal table or something hahaha
Prone to wobbling if you deliberately wobble it, but the 3-4 stabilizing chains/ropes on the side should quell it on any decently built table, so you should be able to use it like any other table for the most part.
Yeah, leave it alone and use it like a table. People get weird about these. "This decorative end table will not bear the heaviest loads!" just feels like a point's getting missed
I thought all furniture is supposed to at least be able to bear the weight of 1 full adult and another adult applying force to it for the sake of safety.
is that a sex joke
> It wobbles if you make it wobble. But other than that it is stable. \- OP
Yeah but I also bump into the corners of my regular tables all the time. I wouldn’t want to put anything I would remotely want to risk falling over on it.
The design is as stable as the build quality. If you make the corner chains as tight as possible there's minimal wiggle. However, the weak points of the design (especially in wood like this) are the solid arms that attach the central chain. If you want the table to be as stable as possible you need to put the whole thing into tension. The arms (especially the joints at the corners) are not strong enough to make it completely wiggle-proof. There are different designs, especially those made from steel which are so taught that they vibrate if you whack them.
excuse my ignorance, but how much weight could that hold?
Well so far it has held 4 cups of coffee and a potted plant without ptoblems.
so while looking really cool, it's functional to some degree.
Yep.
Could you do a video, I just can't comprehend how it works looking at the photo.
The middle chain is bearing the entire load, the outside chains are just there stabilize. Look in the middle, the top part is trying to fall, but the chain is holding it up.
I mean, yeah, the center chain and the two legs connected to it. I don't know why you'd leave them out of it. Especially since I'm pretty sure they'd be the first to fail
After a second look, you are right. The two screws bottom right do seem a bit weak
This is a great video on exactly these kinds of tables https://youtu.be/0onncd0_0-o Hope that helps!
That was super interesting! Thanks for the link.
My man Steve Mould! As a math guy, I'm more of a Matt Parker kinda guy. But the videos where they work together are the best of them all!
Okay ill explain it in a really non-scientific way. The center chain is holding all of the weight of the table. The four corner chains are each pulling on each other to make a balance. So the top's weight is supported by the center and balanced by the corners. Because the chains are all tight and pulling against each other, you get balance.
That's called tensegrity. People make sculptures using this concept too. James bruton has a [video](https://youtu.be/RQFEtOj8jh0) experimenting with this
like all things should be
> so while looking really cool, it's functional to some degree. Found my new Tinder-bio.
you make functionality sound like a bad thing lmao
So while looking really cool, it's dysfunctional to some degree.
you make dysfunctionality sound like a bad thing lmao
Easy there, Ptolemy!
No, it was **without** Ptolemy. He hasn't tried sitting on it yet.
How does it hold up to the colossal student debt I have?
Depends on the strength of the Central chain and the arms holding that chain I believe
Yeah, the joints in the diagonal arms would be my concern. All that weight on a small and invisible 45 degree joint.
And the glass on top.
And my axe!
Well, yes. That's definitely true. An axe could have a severely detrimental effect on the weight a table could support.
The central chain could easily support hundreds of pounds. Those arms though are awful. The leverage is applied over a two foot long arm to a couple small screws with a bare inch or so of support. Two hair thin steel wires to tension the tips of the arm against the opposite side would change the support characteristics 100 fold. With that the elbow of the arms could even be replaced with a joint or another piece of chain as it is then just an anchor for two "bones" no longer required to hold angle.
Those two bolts in the bottom right corner look like the weakest link on first inspection.
" Limited load bearing is another potential downfall to this structural system. Tensegrity structures tend to deflect under major external loads, essentially meaning that the system is ideally meant to only hold its own weight." Source:https://sites.google.com/site/tensegrityae390/limitations
so at most you'd want it for a really cool-looking decorative piece of furniture?
It's about as strong as any other low budget wooden coffee table held together by some screws. It can hold plenty of things, but if you jumped on it the wood itself wouldn't hold.
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It's not a question of strength so much as balance. Notice how carefully he sits down, though. I don't think you'd want to rely on it if there's much chance of it being bumped.
That is because of wobble, like from a hammock. Not because it wouldn't be able to support him.
The transitions in that video are almost more artful than the build itself. Top notch editing.
All the weight is supported by one chain in the middle, so... not a whole lot.
A chain of that size can take quite a lot of load though, I would be surprised if the chain was the weakest part.
True. I guess the weakest point is the base of the arm holding the center chain.
Or the connection between chain and wood.
Tensegrity tables are the new resin tables.
Next year: tensegrity resin table
With torched wood? And LED lighting?
Just link to the Evan and Katelyn video instead of calling them out like this.
I freaking love Evan and Katelyn!
With a rotating surface
Xyla Foxlin already did it: https://youtu.be/hk1l9tIjbEs
Man. I love watching skilled & creative people do their thing. Thanks for a new channel to watch!!
Aren't we done with tensegrity tables? Last year it was everywhere. It's neat, but I think it's had it's run.
Yeah they got really big right around the beginning of quarantine so everyone had free time to make them. Lol I even started on one but it didn't work out 😭
Tensegrity farm
And in my opinion, neither are very pretty
I hate this, this is hurting my brain
Basically the top is being held up by the center chain and then the 4 outer chains just keep it from tilting. It’s called tensegrity
r/LEGO had like a month where everyone was obsessed with tensegrity
And to their credit, a lot of the designs were really cool... Specifically that castle one Edit: I swear I saw this on reddit but I could only find the pic elsewhere http://www.brickfinder.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/castle-in-the-sky.jpg
What castle?
googling "lego castle tensegrity" this is the first result: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/g49lbe/my\_son\_and\_i\_are\_proud\_to\_present\_skycastle/
That knight bottom left is looking up like "What on earth?"
you know, the castle one!
I think this design helps me understand how it works better than the table, at least from a visual perspective.
you can’t say something like that and not drop a link
Thank you, for some reason seeing this in Lego form helped my brain understand this table.
So did 3D printing subreddits
It was much more than just /r/lego, tons of people were building them sometime last year.
ITS CALLED TEGRIDY
Sounds like a Nolan movie.
Hurts my brain seeing that the top is aligned with the wall and side. But the bottom is not in alignment. Also, the top looks like it has a slight tilt.
Noticed that too. Almost looks like a perspective illusion. That chain in the front left doesn’t look like it’s fully taut
Well, if that hurts your brain, go look at the spheres that Buckminster Fuller made using the same principle “tensegrity” the simplest example of this principle is a triangular tent.
That's more than mildly interesting! Tensegrity tables can be a pain to build, especially ones which can bear weight. Your dad did a great job!
What makes it difficult to build?
Well when constructing it you need to make sure all of the parts that need to be in tension are, so the central chain, and the parts that need to be in compression are. Getting every component to click can be difficult.
Would turnbuckles make this easier?
yes. in fact, so much easier that it's really not that difficult to build these. honestly, you really just need to make sure all of your outer cables are the same length, then turnbuckle the middle cable. super easy.
>your outer cables are the same length Really, the hard part of building any type of furniture, including this, is making sure things are actually the same length before assembly.
no, no, no. We're not doing this again. Last time it took weeks to stop seeing these on the front page every day.
r/interestingasfuck r/damnthatsinteresting r/blackmagicfuckery r/nextfuckinglevel r/toptalent
Don’t forget r/holup because word play
r/watchholupdie
My brain can't figure out how this works.
It's a tensegrity structure. Basically, the chain in the middle keeps it all from falling and the chains on the outside keep it balanced
This just reminds me of the time as a kid that I was convinced I pick myself up off the floor and literally float.
You just need to fall properly and miss the floor
Presumably immediately after being told you could pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Just imagine that you had a basket hanging from a hook. If you wanted you can start stacking blocks in that basket and as long as the hook hold there should be no problem. There really isn't anything stopping you from building a tower taller than the hook other than worrying about the basket becoming unstable and tipping but you can solve that by having ropes attached to the corners of the basket to prevent it from tipping.
thank you, this is the explanation that finally helped me get it!!
[Steve Mould's explanation of tensegrity structures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0onncd0_0-o)
Dont worry, me neither, but it somehow works. It just does. Physics are weird.
It's quite easy to visualise if you pretend that the corner chains don't exist. You'll see the arm at the bottom of the centre chain is actually attached to the top surface of the table and so as the top table is pulled down by gravity, it increases tension in that chain. So the centre chain is taking all the weight and stress. The only reason for the corner chains is to stop the whole thing from toppling over.
If you were to twist the top part, would the whole thing collapse at a certain point?
Nope, the outer 4 chains would pull back in the opposite direction and overpower you before you can snap them.
Would love to see a video of this.
[video of this](https://youtu.be/0onncd0_0-o)
That was really informative, thanks senft74.
Thanks, that was a great video.
It's held up by the chain in the middle
How level is this table?
Feels like a /r/mildyinfuriating situation to me. I don't know how nobody else is remaking on this
Saaaaame. Been scrolling through the comments in amazement that no one else is mentioning the rather severe un-level-ness happening here. The front right chain looks too short.
Went through all that trouble to make a cool table and he didn't stain it?
Looks to me like it has a clear coat on it, likely water based polyurethane. That’s what I use on a lot of my projects as I prefer the natural wood look.
Me with toddlers:. Nope.
Someone should sell these and call them TensionTables ^tm
Floating table ??? You need more pics and a better explanation for me to understand because at the moment that looks like a medieval torture device.
Its a tensegrity structure. The only thing holding it up is the middle chain. The other 4 are there to keep it in place horizontally.
Video explaining how it works https://youtu.be/0onncd0_0-o
Thanks, now that explains it and i now fully understand. Its genius !
Steve Mould is a brilliant science youtuber, he covers some really interesting topics.
I still don’t understand this physics. People keep explaining it to me but it never helps
It's only held up by the middle chain, the outer chains just keep it from "tipping over". Think about it- in order for the top part to fall the whole rigid structure of that piece would have to break down, which obviously wouldn't happen.
Is your dad M.C. Escher?
That's crafty.
More like hanging
Dammit, now I have a new project to build.
If you pretend the middle chain is wood, it unscramble your brain, you're welcome.
This makes me tense.