Vernier Photogate

Contributors: bri_huang

Use in the Classroom

Unfortunately, I was not able to present the photogates to my class at Overland High School. However, Mr. Ryan O'Block, one my colleagues at the school, was able to use these in his Freshman Earth and Physical Science class.

Here is the activity that he used with his class:

• Photogate Worksheet

Class use of the photogate timers:

Using photogates provides students with reliable and repeatable data for measuring time. The reaction-time latency and error associated with simple stop-watches often masks the fundamental concepts around learning about position and time. This simple tool can be reproduced easily and at a very low cost to schools.

The next steps are to improve the code and add the ability to measure and store multiple data points. This feature would allow students to calculate the increase in average velocity and determine an average acceleration over a given time period.

If you are interested in more detail, please leave us a comment. Or, if you have ideas of improvements or suggestions, we would love to hear them.