Hanging Garden of Coupled Harmonic Oscillators

These LEGO potted plants are set up as three coupled harmonic oscillators. If one starts to swing then so do the others. A cool trick is to release two adjacent oscillators at once. Watch how after a short time the middle one will temporarily stop while the outer plants continue to swing then it will start again. This is a fun desk toy and an example of an important STEM concept. For example, much of the physics of solid matter is based on the particles behaving like coupled oscillators.