A study on kinetic friction: the Timoshenko oscillator

Friction is a complex phenomenon that is of paramount importance in everyday life. We present an easy-to-build and inexpensive experiment illustrating Coulomb's law of kinetic friction. The so-called friction, or Timoshenko, oscillator consists of a plate set into periodic motion through the competition between gravity and friction on its rotating supports. The period of such an oscillator gives a measurement of the coefficient of kinetic friction \mu_k between the plate and the supports. Our prototype is mainly composed of a motor, LEGO blocks, and a low-cost microcontroller, but despite its simplicity the results obtained are in good agreement with values of \mu_k found in the literature.