A study of high school students doing physics experiments with Arduino and other data logging devices

Wing-Kwong Wong, Bo-Sing Guo and Tsung-Kai Chao
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
Douliu City, Taiwan

Chao-Jung Wu
National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan

Yunn-Wen Lien
National Taiwan Normal University
Taipei, Taiwan

Traditional high school physics labs rely on manual data logging or logging devices with a slow data acquisition rate and low precision. This study aimed at designing data logging devices and a modelling tool for high school physics labs with low-cost modern electronics, including smartphones, Lego Mindstorms NXT, and Arduino equipped with an ultrasonic. For NXT and smartphones, the experimental data were first recorded in the devices and then manually copied to a personal computer for data analysis. For Arduino, the experimental data were transmitted to a PC via BlueTooth in real time. With the data in a PC, each student used a modelling tool on a Web browser to try to find an equation that fitted the data with only a small error. The equation was a function that related one variable to another. For example, in a free-fall experiment, the equation expressed distance as a function of time. With each equation submitted, the tool plots the model against a background of lab data with a measure of error. Based on the visual plot and the error information, the student can then try to reduce the error by revising the equation. The results indicated that both the students and the instructor enjoyed using the modern data loggers and using the acquired data to find equations that fit the data well.