Maker

Introduction to this Lab

This is a quick and fun lab for makers!  In this lab, a pair of PocketLabs and Phyphox software are used to make a tracer.  As shown in Figure 1, the pair of PocketLab Voyagers are mounted to a small movable rectangular piece of plastic, perpendicular to one another and parallel to two edges of the plastic.  A small black circle is taped to the plastic to serve as the point for following the item to be traced.  In our example, a five-pointed star is traced.  One of the Voyagers is labeled X, and it

It’s not always enough to just hear music.  Many of us enjoy visualizing it while listening.  4th of July fireworks are commonly synced to Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever.   Concert goers see spotlights flashing to their favorite pop songs.  Modern home owners play their sound systems synchronized with Phillips Hue lighting and nanoleaf® light panels with a Rhythm module.  For many years, classic visualizers have di

Have you ever wondered what your dog does all day long while you are at work?  Is resting the major “activity” or is there some occasional wandering?  Is there silence or periodic barking, such as when the mailman comes or a squirrel is seen through a window?  The author of this lesson has a couple of schnauzers, known for their predisposition for barking.  “Welcome to the Bark Side” is a frequent phrase voiced to passersby while I am taking the schnauzers for a walk.  But how much do they bark when cooped up in the house and I am out someplace?   And do they move around a lot or mostly nap

Sensor-based inquiry is a dominant force in today’s science education, with the calibration of sensors being essential for high-quality measurement.  Wikipedia® defines calibration as “the comparison of measurement values delivered by a device under test with those of a calibration standard of known accuracy.”  In this lesson students will study the process of calibration:

The maker revolution has grown by leaps and bounds during the past four years. With dozens of robotic toys for learning and discovery now in the marketplace, it makes sense to give students opportunities for interfacing these robots with the investigative powers of PocketLab Voyager. This lesson describes an example project by which students interface Voyager with Modular Robotics Cubelets—robot blocks that magnetically connect to form an endless variety of robots. There are seventeen different blocks in three categories—sense, think, and act.

There are over a dozen activities that you can do with your PocketLab Maker Kit! Below you will find instructions and links each activity, and you can find more ideas by browsing hundreds of PocketLab lesson plans.

First, here is a video on how to assemble the Maker Kit cart.

Make a Magnetic Minesweeper game!

Ozobot “Evo” (ozobot.com) is a tiny one-inch diameter robot that can be quickly programmed to follow lines using a Google Blockly dialect known as OzoBlockly (ozoblockly.com).  This lesson combines the ability to program Ozobot to follow a circle at constant speed with Voyager’s ability to sense the resulting motion through its angular velocity sensor.  The purpose of this project is to show that if speed is kept constant and the same fo

Ozobot “Evo” (ozobot.com) is a tiny one-inch diameter robot that can be quickly programmed using a Google Blockly dialect known as OzoBlockly (ozoblockly.com).  Combining the ability to program Ozobot to rotate precisely as desired with Voyager’s ability to sense the resulting motion through its collection of sensors, the possibility of a seemingly endless variety of STEM projects becomes a reality.

Exploration

Barometric pressure is the pressure from the force or weight of air exerted on a surface. The PocketLab’s barometric pressure sensor measures the force of the air molecules that push against the sensor

Objective

In this investigation students will:
1. Design a system that uses PocketLab’s barometer and an understanding of ratios and proportions to build a scale.
2. Use the given supplies to find the weight of unknown objects.

Download PDF for complete lab activity