The Caliper
A Publication for Users of Vernier Products

New Products

Proto Board Adapters for Vernier Sensors

We recently introduced adapters which allow you to connect either our analog or digital sensors to any standard prototyping board. They were originally designed for use with the National Instruments™ NI ELVIS prototyping board. The two versions are BTA-ELV for analog sensors, and BTD-ELV for digital sensors, including Motion Detectors.

LabVIEW™ Updates

Are you interested in writing your own programs using the LabVIEW graphical programming language? Check out the updated LabVIEW samples posted at www.vernier.com/labview. You will find:
• Simple 5.1 LabVIEW VI collection. These are very simple VIs that are great for learning how LabPro works. They can be used with Windows, Linux, or Mac OS 9 with a serial connection to LabPro. They can also be used with a USB connection on Mac OS 9.
• Analog Data Collect. This is a new VI collection done with the "state machine" software design. They collect slow or fast data, support auto-ID sensors, and include some nice analysis features. These VIs can be used with serial or USB connection to a Windows or Mac OS 9 computer, or with a serial connection on a Linux computer.
• Looking for a LabPro/LabVIEW workshop? You’re in luck. We are conducting a 3-day workshop November 6-8 in the Los Angeles area. This workshop is for high school and 2-year college physics instructors. It will be jointly lead by David Vernier and National Instruments. It is being organized by Curt Hieggelke and Tom O’Kuma as part of the TYC Physics Project. See http://tycphysics.org for details.

TI-73 Explorer™

The TI-73 Explorer (order code TI-73EX, $66) is the newest middle grade and upper elementary graphing calculator from Texas Instruments. The TI-73 Explorer serves as a bridge between the TI-15 Explorer™ and the TI-83 Plus and TI-83 Plus Silver Edition. The TI-73 Explorer is compatible with existing TI-73 classroom products including all of our lab manuals such as Middle School Science with Calculators, Physical Science with Calculators, etc. At $66, the TI-73 Explorer is a very affordable graphing calculator, and with the new DataMate application described below, it is an excellent choice for science and math at this grade level. A Teacher Pack of 10 TI-73 Explorer graphing calculators, 3 guidebooks, a USB Graph Link cable, a poster, 10 unit-tounit cables, and batteries is available (order code TI-73EXTP, $660). A TIViewScreen package is available (order code TI-73EXVS, $300).

Faster DataMate Application Available for TI Calculators

One of the biggest improvements in our DataMate calculator software during the past year has been the introduction of a fast DataMate application for TI-83 Plus and TI-83 Plus Silver Edition calculators. Users of TI-73, TI-73 Explorer, TI-89, TI-92 Plus and Voyage 200 will be excited to know that these faster-running applications are now available for their calculators.

The new applications result in DataMate running significantly faster than previously. You will really notice the difference in performance! Another advantage of using the DataMate application is that it resides in FLASH ROM, which frees up calculator memory for data.

You can obtain these newer DataMate applications as a free download at www.vernier.com/calc/datamate.html