Communications of the ACM
Iu Southeast Professors Develop Apps That Help Users Experience Physics Concepts
Kyle Forinash discusses an app series he co-created called Mobile Science.
Credit: IU Southeast Now
Indiana University Southeast professors Kyle Forinash and Raymond Wisman have designed 10 free "Mobile Science" applications to make students more experientially familiar with physics concepts in real-world settings.
Forinash says the apps can glean accelerometer data, magnetometer data, and other useful data, noting,"it extends the laboratory outside the classroom."
The Acceleration app available on both Nokia phones and iOS devices quantifies the acceleration of objects.
Forinash says he and Wisman determined certain apps can send and receive signals via cellphones and tablets' headset port, and some of the apps operate to collect data from other apps they did not develop. "There are some great apps that collect data from internal sensors built into the phone--magnetic field, acceleration, sound, etc.--but only display the data on the screen," Forinash notes. "To do a science experiment you have to be able to record the data and further analyze it."
Recent apps include MagneticField, which integrates two free apps to compile and analyze magnetometer data for the study of magnetic fields. The apps can convert data into a spreadsheet following collection, and users can generate graphs on their phones using the data on their cellphones.
From IU Southeast Now
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2016 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found