MDSTA 2011 - Create your own probeware. It’s easier than you think!

Below you'll find the Google Presentation I'll be using in my presentation at the annual meeting of the Metropolitan Detroit Science Teachers Association. There's not really much there, most of my presentation will be delivered via the tools I use and the website I created.

The main focus of my presentation is to investigate ways of creating sensors to use with students to collect lab data. My sensors aren't as good or as reliable as those I buy regularly from Vernier, but they often offer other advantages. Plus they are much cheaper and may be the only option a cash strapped teacher has for doing these sorts of investigations.

The main advantages to making your own sensos include:

• Cheap - Some of my sensors can cost less that $2, the most expensive solution I've used paired a $30 accelerometer with a $20 micro-controller. That's about $300 less than the same solution using Vernier products.
• You can make sensors you can't buy from typical science education supply companies. The accelerometer I mentioned above can measure up to 250 g's! We tried to use it to find the acceleration of a bouncy ball while on the ground. We did this after calculating an acceleration of 320 g's. My students didn't believe it could be so high, so we tried to confirm it, we maxed out the sensor!
• Peer into the Black Box - Our sensors are a black box, by creating your own, and more importantly getting some students to help, we get to peek into the black box and see how they work. As we play students ask questions like, "If the accelerometer is not moving why does it read one g?"