how to construct an earthquake model with a simple eathquate detector?

Question

a school level project without much frills and technicalities. a simple working model should do.........

Answer 1

A weight hanging on a spring (you can buy springs at most hardware and auto parts stores) with a paper "arrow" taped to the weight pointing to some graph paper, will show vibrations from the earth, or possibly trucks moving on a nearby road, or people walking nearby. You can also replace the paper arrow with an ink pen, so it traces onto the graph paper.

The 'thing' that holds up the spring can be made of wood or metal, but it's base must be attached to something heavy and solid like a slab of concrete (or in your case a heavy flat rock).

Try experimenting with different springs -- lightweight to stiff to get different results.

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Answer 2

The best to keep the structure from failing and hurting you inside of the structure. Seems that a lot of people are looking into warning systems that can warn you throughout the entire earthquake, but the earthquake doesn't emit a warning signal ahead of time, so for earthquakes, the best protection is better building and structure frames that will not break apart by the earthquake. I rate this answer as about eighth grade, based on that was about the time our science teacher addressed these types of questions, and gave a similar answer as mine above. If you are assuming that the model you are making for this experiment will last through an earthquake, like some sort of instrumentation test building, the model should have a sensor reading gauge that has sonar capabilities that reads motions and vibrations.