A new system for tracking a metal ball rolling on the slope of the touch panel of a tablet computer was developed. The widespread introduction of tablets in educational environments allows the use of a convenient dynamic measurement in schools.

Water rockets can be used in a variety of ways, from schools to planetariums, with very young kids or adults. We propose here simple forms to work with water rockets, going one step further than a simple launch. A smartphone can be used to film the launch and analyze its motion with video analysis or it can even be attached to the rocket, using…

Nowadays, electronic devices (especially smartphones) are developed to use as an alternative tool for recording experimental data in physics experiments. This is because of the embedded sensors in a smartphone such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, camera, microphone, and speaker. These sensors were used in physics experiments, such…

The use of smartphones in experimental physics is by now widely accepted and documented. PASCO scientific's Smart Cart, in combination with student-owned smartphones and free apps, has opened a new universe of low-cost experiments that have traditionally required cumbersome and expensive equipment. In this paper, we demonstrate the simplicity,…

Smartphones and their internal sensors offer new options for an experimental access to teach physics at secondary schools and universities. Especially in the field of mechanics, a number of smartphone-based experiments are known illustrating, e.g., linear and pendulum motions as well as rotational motions using the internal MEMS accelerometer and…

Implementing smartphones with their internal sensors into physics experiments represents a modern, attractive, and authentic approach to improve students' conceptual understanding of physics. In such experiments, smartphones often serve as objects with physical properties and as digital measurement devices to record, display, and analyze…

In this article, the dynamics of a traditional toy, the yo-yo, are investigated theoretically and experimentally using smartphone sensors. In particular, using the gyroscope the angular velocity is measured. The experimental results are complemented thanks to a digital video analysis. The concordance between theoretical and experimental results is…

We propose an experimental analogy to verify Kepler's second law using a spherical pendulum. We made a movie of a closed elliptical orbit of the pendulum and extracted the data position using the Tracker software. Analyzing the data, we measured the areas that the position vector sweeps showing the validity of Kepler's second law.

When we travel in a train moving at a certain velocity, we observe the stationary objects outside are moving backwards. These stationary objects seem to move due to a relative velocity. Consider that the stationary object outside the train is a man standing on the stationary floor watching a woman moving on a train. The woman on a train will see…

Students' understanding of forces in circular motion is often incomplete. The problems are not limited to confusions about centripetal acceleration and centrifugal forces. This paper considers possible effects of different interventions by a teacher who has discovered the many types of free-body diagrams drawn by students for circular motion in a…

The dynamics of a spring pendulum is an important topic in introductory experimental physics courses at universities and advanced science courses in secondary school education. Different types of pendulum setups with smartphones were proposed to investigate, e.g., the gravitational acceleration, to measure spring constants, or to illustrate and…

In recent years, smartphone sensors have been frequently used in educational demonstrations to improve students' understanding of certain physical kinematic topics. In particular, the sensors on modern smartphones enable students to use their phones as physics mini-laboratories, and they have been used to analyze objects' speeds and accelerations…

We created an introductory physics activity for undergraduate students, consisting of measuring the same physical quantity by different methods. This allows us to confront students with questions of uncertainty, precision, and model versus theory. The aim was to measure the height of a building using only a smartphone and everyday low-cost…

Video motion analysis allows tracing trajectories of objects in motion and is an established method in physics education. Tablet computers, with their integrated cameras, offer the opportunity to both record and analyze dynamic motions during experiments on a single device. This enables students to work without transitioning the data between…

The drag effect on a falling ball caused by air is a conventional subject in the most well-known textbooks of classical mechanics and fluid dynamics. Further, there are some papers that employ video analysis to track objects movements in the air making it possible to obtain position data as a function of time and its graphs. However, none of them…