Grant, a student of mine, wrote a physics lab for his final project. He set up a pendulum with 2 choices of arm length and asked the rest of the class 1) for an object swinging on the end of the arm, when during the period is acceleration greatest? and 2) which would swing with a higher velocity — a Wiimote on the longer- or shorter-armed pendulum?
To gather data, Grant connected a Wiimote to his computer over Bluetooth. He then showed us how the Wiimote works:
Then he connected the Wiimote to his Apple laptop to display acceleration (in 3 axes, no less!) using DarwiinRemote.
Grant used a few web resources in devising his lab, here they are:
- Hacking the Wii remote for physics class
- Wheeeee! It’s a Wii remote in physics
- Measure your 0-60 time with a Wiimote
Oh, you wanna know the answers to Grant’s questions? 1) acceleration is maximized on the downward swing and 2) the Wiimote records a higher velocity when swinging on the long-arm pendulum.
