In this study, an educational tool has been prepared for obtaining short-term and more economic training on digital speckle shearography (DSS). Shearography non-destructive testing (NDT) has gained wide acceptance over the last decade, providing a number of important and exciting inspection solutions in aerospace, electronics and medical device…

We propose the use of Tracker, freeware for video analysis, to analyse the moment of inertia ("I") of a cylindrical plate. Three experiments are performed to validate the proposed method. The first experiment is dedicated to find the linear coefficient of rotational friction ("b") for our system. By omitting the effect of such friction, we derive…

In this paper we present an experimental strategy to measure the micro power dissipation due to Foucault "eddy" currents in a copper cylinder rolling on two parallel conductive rails in the presence of a magnetic field. Foucault power dissipation is obtained from kinematical measurements carried out by using a common PC webcam and video analysis…

We present a low-cost, fully computer-controlled, Arduino-based, educational laboratory (SolarInsight) to be used in undergraduate university courses concerned with electrical engineering and physics. The major goal of the system is to provide students with the necessary instrumentation, software tools and methodology in order to learn fundamental…

A pedagogical tool that consists of a Java applet has been developed so that undergraduate students in physics can explore the wave behaviour of particles. The applet executes a simulation in which a two-dimensional wave packet moves towards a slit and an obstacle with variable widths. By changing three parameters, slit width, obstacle width and…

This paper proposes a different experimental setup compared with the traditional ones, in order to determine the acceleration of gravity, which is carried out by using a fluid at a constant rotation. A computerized rotational system--by using a data acquisition system with specific software, a power amplifier and a rotary motion sensor--is…

A student experiment on dynamic calorimetry is described. Dynamic calorimetry is a powerful technique for calorimetric studies, especially at high temperatures and pressures. A low-power incandescent lamp serves as the sample. The ScienceWorkshop data-acquisition system with DataStudio software from PASCO Scientific displays the results of the…

The implementation of a modern game-console controller as a data acquisition interface for physics experiments is discussed. The investigated controller is equipped with three perpendicular accelerometers and a built-in infrared camera to evaluate its own relative position. A pendulum experiment is realized as a demonstration of the proposed…