Even if you’re not a gearhead, you’ll get a kick out of the contraption that engineer Bob Karpel designed to test shelves, trash cans, and lazy Susans. "The trick was converting the rotational movement of a gear motor to the push-pull action you get in the kitchen," Karpel says.

With the use of two motors and a series of crank arms and levers, Karpel’s creation simultaneously subjected all three types of organizers to 30,000 repetitions, or the equivalent of five to 10 years of use in a kitchen. Watch Karpel's machine in action, right.

Learn more about we test organizers in this entry from the Home & Garden blog.