Construction and Applications of a Mechanical Rattle-Sound Generator

A device consisting of a mass-loaded cantilever and a striker block mounted on an electromagnetic shaker can be used to create a wide variety of mechanical rattle sounds. The construction of the rattle mechanism is described and illustrated with diagrams. Examples of the different qualities of rattles that can be produced are presented as plots of microphone waveforms. The applications of such a device are primarily in support of the development, testing, and evaluation of rattle detection systems based on human experts or computers.