• Programme: Bachelor of Science in Bioscience engineering Technology
• Standard learning track year: BA2
• Course unit(s): I700268 - Optics and Sensor
• Average number of students: 85
• Involved lecturer(s): Philippe.Smet@ugent.be
• Academic year of (first) implementation: 2022-2023

Description

The 'Virtual Science Labs' project within APOLLO 8 (the Voorsprongfonds at Ghent University) included the 'development of online learning modules where students can perform simple experiments at home using a personal toolkit'. The subproject focused in particular on physics labs as several of the corresponding experiments allow to perform them outside the lab room without having to replace them (e.g. for safety reasons) by virtual simulations. Moreover, the fact that in home experiments students still carry out experiments themselves further enhances their research skills.

A first tool that can be used for home experiments is the Phyphox app. It reads out various build-in sensors in a smartphone (motion sensors, light sensors, magnetometers, etc.) and allows to display the data in real time in graphs or to export them as numerical values. The app is very accessible and already takes care of part of the data processing so that students can focus more on other aspects of the experiment. However, there are also two downsides: not every type of smartphone contains the same set of sensors and some models are so expensive that you don't want to risk damaging them in experiments.

APOLLO 8 allowed some alternative sensor kits to be explored. Comparative tests showed that their performance can easily differ by a factor of 50, which is important, for example, when students want to measure an altitude difference through a pressure difference, which then requires sufficient accuracy. A listing of the sensor kits involved and a brief characterisation:

• the iOLab sends measurement data to your computer via a USB dongle and requires a separate programme to read them out
• the PocketLab Voyager connects to a PC or table through bluetooth. Although very compact, it contains many sensors.
• the Arduino Nano is even smaller but contains no battery. The Arduino still needs to be programmed but also allows a connection with Phyphox.

Within the 'Optics and sensors' course, students investigate various aspects of these sensors, such as dynamic range, sample rate and measurement resolution. To this end, they design their own experiment to which they then subject the sensor kit in question. Initially, they were going to do this with the Arduino Nano, but since this tool needs to be programmed first, in the end Phyphox has been used. In addition to a screenshot taken during the experiment, the students also had to integrate a picture of their set-up in the report to prevent copying behaviour in the long run.

Tips

• Tip 1: The students did not appear to encounter any problems when installing the Phyphox app. Thus initial concerns about this turned out to be unfounded. .
• Tip 2: To avoid that programming the Arduino Nano requires too much attention (and possibly some frustration), next year students will start working with Arduinos that have already been programmed.
• Tip 3: Students only develop their research competences when they are not just presented with a recipe but first have to design an experiment themselves. This free choice enhances their motivation, but in the long run it also requires an intermediate step in which the students indicate which experiment they exactly want to carry out, so that as a lecturer you can still make adjustments if necessary.

Recording

The recording of the presentation on home experiments given at the revisionday of the "Virtual Science Labs" project can be found here.