Smart Physics

The Smart Physics laboratory experiments have been designed to introduce the students to two new methods of data collection and performing experiments to test and verify physical principles.

1. Using a digital camera to record videos in slow motion which allows us to observe objects moving at high speed.
2. Using a smartphone’s built-in inertial motion sensors to acquire data

We have created PhysTrack, which is a Matlab package providing an efficient way of performing video tracking in Matlab.

Primers and software

• Primer — Smart Physics with Smartphone: This primer is a must read for anyone embarking on the use of smartphones to capture the kinematics of moving bodies.
• Primer — Smart Physics with Video Tracking: This primer is meant for the regular user of who wants to perform video tracking using PhysTrack. For example, the physics teacher who wishes to get an overview of our tracking system, while focusing on the physics.
• PhysTrack’s experimenter’s reference manual is meant for the experienced software developer who wishes to create new physics experiment and add new innovative features to the existing ones. It is also meant to provide help to the physics teacher who wants to edit the existing experiment examples for custom usage.
• For individual experiments, it is recommended to read through the “Student manuals”

The primers can be found on the following links.

• Smart Physics with Smartphones
• Smart Physics with Video Tracking

Other resources specific to PhysTrack can be found on the following links.

• Complete downloadable package
• PhysTrack wiki
• GitHub repository
• Experimenter’s reference manual
• Sourcecode (without sample videos)
• Sample Videos

Here are some interesting examples

Tracking kinematics of a fly using video.

The accelerometer recording from a smart phone placed inside an elevator car.

Angular speed and angular displacement data acquired from a smart phone sensor