Introduction

This lesson features Voyager and the "intelino® smart train" in a lab for AP physics students.  Designed for all ages, intelino is intuitive with its app, has built-in sensors to provide an interactive experience for the user, and is easily programmed with color snaps that allow the user to control intelino's actions.  Students are challenged to design and carry out an experiment to show that impulse is equal to change in momentum when Voyager is mounted to an intelino smart engine that suddenly reverses itself.

In these two design challenges, students will design and construct their own thermos/storage device using craft materials and measure its effectiveness to insulate a liquid with a PocketLab temperature probe. These activities are aligned with two middle school NGSS standards and are a great open-ended, hands-on project for students to engage their critical thinking and engineering skills. 

Introduction

In a previous lesson the "intelino® smart train" was introduced, and an activity on speed for 4th grade through middle school students was presented.  In that lesson Voyager was "on board" the intelino train and collected data for measuring the speed of the train.  With students at the 4th grade level learning angle measurements in degrees and also having a solid foundation in multiplication and long division, there is

Introduction

Damping causes oscillatory systems to dissipate energy to their surroundings.  Frictional losses are quite common in mechanical systems and result in damped simple harmonic motion.  For example, when a child stops pumping a swing, the amplitude of the oscillations gradually decay toward zero.  The same thing happens to a mass that hangs from an oscillating spring.  It is quite common for the amplitude of such oscillations to exhibit a behavior that is negative exp

Introduction

Damping causes oscillatory systems to dissipate energy to their surroundings.  Frictional losses are quite common in mechanical systems.  For example, when a child stops pumping a swing, the amplitude of the oscillations gradually decay toward zero.  The same thing happens to a mass that hangs from an oscillating spring.  It is quite common for the amplitude of such oscillations to exhibit a behavior that is negative exponential over time, as shown in Figure 1.  The graph indicates that if we take the amplitude at time t=0 to be 1, then the amplitude at time

PocketLab University

PocketLab University is an initiative to develop college-level labs that students can conduct at home, in their dorm room, or in any other setting without the need for laboratory equipment. Lab 1 uses PocketLab Voyager to understand the physical principles that enable temperature sensors to convert the physical property of temperature to an electrical property that we can measure with simple circuitry. The student assignment is below.

Introduction

Resonance can be defined in a number of ways.  The most common definition is that resonance occurs at the frequency at which forced oscillations produce maximum amplitude.  When the driving forces of oscillation are removed, friction gradually decreases the amplitude.  This is known as damped harmonic motion.  Most young children experience resonance as well as damped harmonic motion in schoolyard playgrounds.  They experience resonance while pumping the swing at the right frequency--the natural frequency of the swing.  They experience dampe

Introduction

In a well-known 1938 book entitled "Demonstration Experiments in Physics", editor Richard Sutton describes a setup for producing periodic motion of a cart using weights instead of springs.  With today's technology this experiment can be done using an air disk, and data can be collected with PocketLab Voyager's rangefinder.  The data clearly shows that not all periodic motions are simple harmonic.  The restoring force when weights are used is constant, while the restoring force with springs is proportional to the displacement.  Springs produce simple harmonic

The Momentum Pendulum

The momentum pendulum is shown in Figure 1.  A frame (red) to hold the pendulum was printed on a 3D printer.  The STL file in included with this lesson.  The frame is solidly attached to the PocketLab HotRod with three damage-free hanging strips.  A roughly 3" diameter  wood ball with a screw eye attached to the top of the ball is hung from a bifilar suspension so that the ball will swing in a plane.  Two small holes at the top of the frame provide an easy way to prepare the string suspension.  The smaller set of wheels are used with the HotRod, and

Introduction

"The brakes on my car have failed and I can fix either the front or rear brakes.  Which set of brakes should I fix if I am concerned with stability against spinning while braking?"   This quote is from an article by W. G.