Vernier Software & Technology » Innovative Uses

New Innovative Uses

David — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:23:43 +0000

Get your school year started with these great lab ideas and innovative uses from Vernier staff and educators!

Do you have an innovative use for Vernier technology? Send them to innovativeuses@vernier.com

Video Analysis and Muscle Physiology

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:51:08 +0000

Our biology staff scientist, John Melville, has been working with our new LabQuest Mini and has found a way to integrate video analysis into a simple muscle physiology experiment. EKG sensors are attached to the bicep and forearm muscles to record muscle activity. A Low-g Accelerometer is then attached to the wrist to measure joint angle. The video capture feature in Logger Pro is then used to synchronize video from a DV camera and the physiological data from the LabQuest Mini. The subject is filmed performing a simple bicep curl. Students can then clearly see that muscle activity precedes movement of the arm and that the forearm muscle activity precedes activation of the bicep.

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Use the SpectroVis Plus to Explore Fluorescence Spectroscopy

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:49:09 +0000

Fluorescent molecules are compounds that absorb light of one wavelength, then re-emit light at a longer wavelength. This emitted light can be quantified using fluorescence spectroscopy. Molecular and cellular biologists use fluorescent compounds to label proteins, gels, and even cellular organelles. In many ways, fluorescent compounds have revolutionized research in the life sciences.

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Record Electric Signals from an Electric Fish!

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:39:13 +0000

With its increased frequency response and external grounding pin, our new and improved Instrumentation Amplifier can now be used to record the electric signal from an electric fish with four easy steps.

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Using the Wide-Range Temperature Probe with MEL-TEMP®

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:37:07 +0000

If your school owns MEL-TEMP units, this is for you. Our Wide-Range Temperature Probe fits perfectly into the thermometer slot of a MEL-TEMP unit. This is a great option, especially if your school is no longer using mercury thermometers. The Wide-Range Temperature Probe can be used safely to 330°C, and its RTD (resistance temperature detection) technology ensures accuracy to ±0.1°C.

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Periodic Table Graphing

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:35:34 +0000

When we originally created the popular Periodic Table application in LabQuest, we realized that there was a gold mine of information in the database that could eventually be used to create periodic table plots, such as atomic radius vs. atomic number, first ionization energy vs. atomic number, etc. Most introductory chemistry courses introduce periodic trends by having students create these kinds of plots and look for recurring trends in many chemical and physical properties. You can do this in LabQuest App.

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Digital Photographs in Physics

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:23:56 +0000

We were intrigued by an article in the November 2009 issue of The Physics Teacher entitled “Inexpensive Strobe-Like Photographs” by Emil L. Medeiros, O dilon A.P. Tavares and Sergio B. Durate. The article describes a great way to create strobe-like photographs with simple video cameras, or with still digital cameras that have a movie mode. This prompted us to share three ideas with you.

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Impulse Comparison for Elastic and Inelastic Collisions

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:20:55 +0000

Keith Michaelsen, Southington High School, Southington, CT, contacted us to discuss ways to show students that the impulse delivered during an elastic collision is twice the impulse delivered by an inelastic collision. This is a counter-intuitive concept, and performing an experiment to observe this can be a challenge. Here’s how we would do it.

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Cool Tools: Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy and Video Analysis in Logger Pro

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:14:54 +0000

The Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy uses Vernier tools to help their student athletes analyze their motion on the race course and in the terrain park. Miles McGeehan, physics instructor, has developed a course titled Ski Physics. Each week, students address a different concept in Newtonian physics.

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Green Engineering

washworth — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:13:23 +0000

Steve Cogger, instructor at Doherty Middle School, Andover, MA, has his students design and test wind turbines. The goal of the project is to optimize the design of turbine blades to generate the highest output power. Using NI LabVIEW software with the Vernier SensorDAQ interface, he wrote a simple LabVIEW program to measure voltage and current from Vernier sensors.

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