Our Em3 goes dual-axis.

We can't build our new Emriver Em3 models fast enough to meet demand.  The Em3's big enough for research, and eighteen students can put hands in at once.  But it remains portable like the Em2; its box weighs only 95 pounds ( 43 kg).

We designed the Em3 based on our two decades of experience and interaction with thousands of teachers and scientists, including users of over 100 of our models worldwide.

This (a bit silly) video shows us celebrating the final design of a dual-tilt mechanism for the Em3.  If you've seen it, you know how powerful it is -- we'll ship these to universities and museums worldwide.

Like everything we build, it's elegant, easy to use, and made to last forever.  If you're going to GSA this November, you'll see it live. 

Thanks to Chris Krumm of TropoStudio and Warren Sauer of L.E. Sauer Machine in St. Louis for help.  These guys are too cool to have websites, so no links.

And of course, thanks to the amazing peeps at LRRD.

The joy in our job -- teaching with our models.

IGERT students try to protect a river-side home

We’re in the business of building and selling river models.  Day-to-day, we talk to clients, spend hours fine-tuning prototypes, crunch numbers, write instruction manuals, program Arduino boards for flow controllers, and pack and ship models to schools, laboratories and nonprofit groups around the world.

But the best part, for all of us, is teaching with models.  We get to see students interact with our models and with one another.  We get to see them explore new ideas and test their own theories.

We’ve been doing it a lot lately. (And we do almost all of this local outreach pro bono.)

Steve welcomed the newest cadre of SIUC’s NSF-funded IGERT program last week.  IGERT combines elite doctoral students from several science and engineering disciplines to form unparalleled interdisciplinary research teams.  At SIU, the group focuses on watershed management and policy, so the students who visited us are some of the best in our field, and we enjoyed the hours we spent with them in our lab.

Members of the Youth Conservation Corps practice surveying in our Em3.

High-school age members of the Southern Illinois chapter of the Youth Conservation Corps came to our shop, and Lily taught them basic surveying practices and the effects of building culverts and bridges.  They were some of the brightest high school students we’ve encountered; after their lesson, we stepped back and watched them build a large and rather sophisticated bridge system in our Em3.

And last Saturday, Keep Carbondale Beautiful, a local environmental education and community beautification nonprofit org, celebrated its 25th anniversary.  They asked us to join their celebration, so Lily, Nathan and Jim spent Saturday morning greeting visitors around an Em2 at the event.  

Lily and a Youth Conservation Corps member record survey data