Organic Growth of Sensor Apps

One of the things in which we take great pride at Vieyra Software is not what WE do, but what YOU - our users - do. Our ability to expand (and the satisfaction we feel from our work) comes from other people running off and doing great things organically. Thanks for sharing Physics Toolbox apps with your colleagues and students!

Here are a few resources that have really kick-started the use of Physics Toolbox apps (and mobile sensor apps generally). Both of the resources below are excellent resources for introductory teachers across the physical sciences.

AAPT's The Physics Teacher Magazine "iPhysics" Column

For about the past three years, the American Association of Physics Teachers has hosted a the "iPhysicsLabs" column in their primary publication for introductory physics, The Physics Teacher. These columns are replete with ideas for how to use smartphones in the study of kinematics, sound, and light.

Physics Toolbox Gyroscope was featured in "Angular Velocity Direct measurement and Moment of Inertia Calculation of a Rigid Body Using a Smartphone" (2015), and Physics Toolbox Light Sensor was used in "Analyzing Planetary Transits with a Smartphone" (2015).

You can join the American Association of Physics Teachers to get free access to the online (or print) journals, but you can also provide your contact information to AAPT to get access to up to three articles per issue, or even request that a free journal be sent to you. Visit: https://www.aapt.org/Publications/

Expanding the Senses

"Smartphones in Science Teaching: iStage 2" is a freely-accessible publication comes from Europe's Science on Stage K-12 STEM teacher organization, and is a culmination of their work following a thematic "year of the smartphone" in 2015. Each of the publication's sections focus on how the smartphone can augment a different physical sense, and includes applications from physics to chemistry, biology, earth science, and even astronomy.

What's next? Supplementing the Textbooks

We keep tabs on how people are using Physics Toolbox apps with Google alerts. What we've recently found has been a delightful surprise -- textbook authors are increasingly interested in using smartphones and mobile devices to supplement their lab resources.

Keep an eye open over the next spring for the release of new editions of two major books that we expect (or have been told!) will be featuring Physics Toolbox apps: