Radiation Monitor

The Vernier Radiation Monitors detects alpha, beta, gamma, and X-ray radiation. Applications include nuclear counting statistics, shielding, and decay rate measurements. The Radiation Monitor produces a signal that can be detected on the Arduino digital lines.

The Radiation Monitor should be connected to the Digital 1 port on the Vernier Arduino Interface Shield or a Digital Protoboard Adapter wired to Arduino pins 2, 3, 4, and 5 as explained in the Connecting Vernier Sensors to the Arduino Using a Breadboard section. The VernierLib library does not support the Radiation Monitor, but the sample sketch, VernierTutorialRadiation, monitors the sensor and counts the number of radiation events that occur every second. It then reports the number of radiation events on the Serial Monitor.

/* VernierTutorialRadiation (v2017)
 * This sketch monitors a Vernier Radiation Sensor and 
 * counts the number of radiation events that occur every
 * second.
 * 
 * Plug the Radiation Sensor into the Digital 1 port on the 
 * Vernier Arduino Interface Shield or into a Digital Protoboard 
 * Adapter wired to Arduino pins 2, 3, 4, and 5.
 */

int sensorPin = 2; //create global variable for pin assignment to sensor
unsigned long timeStart; //create global variable for start time

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600); //setup communication to display
}

void loop ()
{
  int radCount = 0; //initialize local variable for number of radiation events
  
  timeStart = millis(); //set start time to current time
  while ((millis()-timeStart) <= 1000) //do while current time minus start time is less than 1 second
  {
    if (digitalRead(sensorPin)==HIGH) //check if radiation event detected
    { 
      radCount ++; //increment number of radiation events
     }
  }
Serial.println(radCount); //print total number of radiation events
}