Project Lead the Way Chooses SensorDAQ for their New Biomedical Engineering Courseware

Student project: automated blood pressure monitor using SensorDAQ, Blood Pressure Sensor and the Digital Control Unit.

Project Lead The Way (PLTW) is a national organization that works with the nation's schools to increase the number of young people who pursue engineering and engineering technology programs. They provide educators with the training and course materials needed to prepare students to be successful in these pursuits.

We have worked with Project Lead The Way to integrate our SensorDAQ interface and our physiology sensors into their new Biomedical Sciences courseware. The SensorDAQ is a powerful Vernier interface that has connectors for Vernier sensors. In addition, a screw terminal connector provides versatility to build circuits, create custom sensors, control servo or stepper motors, turn on electronic devices, and more.

The SensorDAQ uses LabVIEW software to acquire, analyze, and save the data to a file. The combination of the Vernier SensorDAQ, easy-to-connect physiology sensors, and LabVIEW's powerful engineering software provides a wealth of experience for students taking part in this new program.

ROBOLAB and the Vernier NXT Sensor Adapter

NXT Sensor Adapter and pH Sensor used for an acidity tester robot

For several months, students and teachers have been using our LEGO NXT Adapter, along with the Mindstorms NXT programming language, to write programs. We support that with our Vernier Sensor Block, which you can download from www.vernier.com/nxt.

Now there are two other programming languages you can use to program the NXT and use our sensors:

• ROBOLAB, the popular programming language, developed by Chris Rogers of the Tufts University Center for Engineering Outreach (CEEO), now supports our adapter. To use the adapter with ROBOLAB, you will need version 2.9.4b of Robolab. See www.engineeringeducation.com for details. There are also great sample ROBOLAB VIs for using our sensors and the adapter at that site, and also at www.vernier.com/nxt.
• You can also write programs to use the NXT and our adapter in LabVIEW. To do this, you need the LabVIEW Toolkit for LEGO Mindstorms NXT, which you can download from www.ni.com. You will also need LabVIEW and some special VIs we wrote to make programming easier. These and sample LabVIEW data-collection programs for use with our sensors are at www.vernier.com/nxt.

NXT Sensor Adapter | Order Code BTA-NXT | $39