16 June 2023

Visual Accelerometer: Noah Segal's (free!) iphone version

I've been a fan for decades of PASCO's visual accelerometer.  The linked post describes the demonstrations I use when introducing the meaning of the direction of acceleration.

Thing is, the visual accelerometer with the red and green LED display has been discontinued by PASCO.  They offer the Smart Cart vector display, which is great in that it does the same thing as the visual accelerometer AND it can be set to display force or velocity instead of acceleration.  But the display itself is $109 plus shipping, and it requires plugging into a $199 smart cart.  

How can you do the visual accelerometer demonstrations for free?

Noah Segal, on the PrettyGoodPhysics teacher message board, shared his solution: he programmed a website to display the output from the iphone's accelerometer exactly like the old visual accelerometer - right down to the red and blue colors.

Turn on the orientation lock on your iphone.  Then, go to the site indicated by the QR code at the top of the post.  You'll need to give the site permission to use your sensor.  Then hit "toggle mode" to see the 1-d red and green output.  Don't like the scale?  Zoom in and out with the + and - buttons.

Best of all, it's free.  Until your phone flies off a cart, hits the wall, and shatters.  Then it is a rather expensive toy.  But for now, just mount the phone securely!  :-)

Thanks, Noah.  



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