The lab was substantially improved by comments and suggestions by
Perry Leo (U. MN. Department of Aerospace Engineering) educated us about beams from an engineering perspective; the original idea to create a "beam lab" was also his. We wish we could have included all of his intuitive explanations about why beams behave as they do.The beam lab was developed with the assistance of Jennifer Powell and Fati Liamidi during the summer of 1995 as part of the Geometry Center Summer Institute for Undergraduates. All of the experimental data was collected by them.
The team also gratefully acknowledges the support and encouragement of Harvey Keynes.