There are several ways in the literature to determine the value of gravitational acceleration. We used an audio plug (3.5-mm jack) that can be reused from types of plugs can also be purchased and are very cheap. In this article, a computer speaker or microphone that are damaged. These value of gravitational acceleration very accurately using…

Ever increasing technological progress opens novel opportunities concerning educational activities, and the ability to use the technology effectively is one of the 21st century's most demanding skills. The Partnership Forum for 21st-Century Skills (P21) states that no organization can achieve satisfying results without using technology and…

When our school implemented AP Physics 1, I wanted to include a project that would extend over time, use more advanced data analysis, and teach students about handling experimental error. Using a donated 5-inch Newtonian telescope and an entry-level digital camera, the students gathered data from digital images of the four Galilean moons, Io,…

The possibility of negative temperatures on the Kelvin scale is intriguing and confusing simultaneously. This is because students are used to thinking of temperature as a measure of the internal energy of a system. While this concept is good for many systems, it does not work for all systems. Nuclear and electron spin systems, along with lasers…

The frequency ratios for the just diatonic scale are obtained by identifying musical intervals corresponding to Lissajous figures. The demonstration integrates the engineering physics of Lissajous patterns with the recognition of musical intervals through simple ear training. A free HTML5 app has been developed for this class activity and the…

Data acquisition equipment for physics can be quite expensive. As an alternative, data can be acquired using a low-cost Arduino microcontroller. The Arduino has been used in physics labs where the data are acquired using the Arduino software. The Arduino software, however, does not contain a suite of tools for data fitting and analysis. The data…

Probeware (sensors combined with data-analysis software) is a well-established part of physics education. In engineering and technology, sensors are frequently paired with actuators--motors, heaters, buzzers, valves, color displays, medical dosing systems, and other devices that are activated by electrical signals to produce intentional physical…

The exercises described here conveniently exploit the built-in acceleration sensors in smartphones, devices that are becoming ubiquitous if not essential items for most students. This allows each student to have the opportunity for a hands-on experience and to collect their own data, reduces preparation time, and greatly reduces cost by removing…

The iPhone 6 introduced a new feature of recording video in Slo-Mo mode at 240 fps (4.17 ms interval). This great capability when integrated with video analysis freeware such as Tracker offers in-depth exploration for physical phenomena such as collisions that occur in a very short duration of time. This article discusses one such usage in…

This paper discusses the use of a free mobile engineering application (app) called Autodesk® ForceEffect™ to provide students assistance with spatial visualization of forces and more practice in solving/visualizing statics problems compared to the traditional pencil-and-paper method. ForceEffect analyzes static rigid-body systems using free-body…

Recent advances in technology have made video capture and analysis in the introductory physics lab even more affordable and accessible. The purchase of a relatively inexpensive web camera is all you need if you already have a newer computer and Vernier's Logger Pro 3 software. In addition to Logger Pro 3, other video analysis tools such as…