Dispatches from the Dirt Lab #2: Building Better Sandcastles

It's getting toward the end of April - and while it's still snowing around here, summer (and time at the beach) is drawing close. In this episode, I talk about why sandcastles stand up in the first place, and how you can make them even stronger.


Here's a direct link for you.
Dispatches from the Dirt Lab #2: Building Better Sandcastles from Matt Kuchta on Vimeo.


The idea of reinforcing sandcastles occurred to me while I was teaching about "geotextiles." These materials are used to add strength to soils for geo-engineering projects like roads, embankments, and retaining walls.

And I have a question sent to me by a visitor. It involves robots, basements, and digging. I'm looking forward to putting an answer together.

UPDATE: The video has been picked up by a few people - and while I try not to read comments on big aggregator sites, a few people have made some good suggestions:

You should definitely remove anything you bring to the beach when you're done building the sandcastles. Pack out what you pack in.

If you are interested in a more biodegradable option, dry grasses woven together, or seaweed would have a similar effect. Ancient builders used woven grass mats to hold their mud brick structures together, so it's not like this hasn't been done before.

If you are building your sandcastles this way, you are indeed "cheating" in the sense that a "true" sandcastle is only held together by sand and water. But I see no ethical dilemma in using this technique if you are going for strength and showing off. If you are competing with others, it's probably against the rules.