DIY Rheology (RVF 2025)

Organizers
Ben Yavitt (University of Cincinnati)
Aashish Priye (University of Cincinnati)

Summary
This proposal describes the development of an educational outreach platform to share “do-it-yourself” (DIY) low-cost rheology instruments. These tools have increased the accessibility of experiencing rheology concepts in educational and community settings. The project was accomplished by building an online community platform on GitHub to share resources for the development, construction, and implementation of DIY rheology tools. The GitHub provides access to instruction manuals, CAD design files, and programming code that enables the community to conduct pedagogical and research rheology experiments. Currently, the GitHub is populated by items from our team. The future goal is to support community development and provide a space for additional design ideas of adapted DIY rheometers. This project will advance SORs mission by (i) improving the accessibility of rheological instrumentation for the general community and (ii) supporting creativity and innovation in developing future rheological instrumentation.