Free Software for
Teaching Physics

                 Kent Hogan
              Onslow College
If we have time…
•   Useful equipment
•   Images
•   Sound
•   Graphing
•   Applets
•   Google Earth
•   Video
Useful equipment
•   ‘Point & shoot’ camera (not video camera)
•   High speed camera
•   Tripod
•   Workshop light
•   Digital audio recorder
•   USB cables
•   Flash drives
Pixel Ruler
http://www.mioplanet.com/products/pixelruler/
MBRuler
http://www.markus-bader.de/MB-Ruler/
Gimp
http://www.gimp.org/
Scope
http://www.zeitnitz.de/Christian/scope_en
Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Excel
                                         12,000 µF



                      4

                      3
                                                                           50 V
                      2
                                                                       40 V
    Speed   (ms-1)    1                                             30 V

                          0                                     20 V
                                                                           Voltage (V)
                          0.025
                                  0.05
                                               0.075         10 V
                     Inductance (mH)                   0.1




(I know, its not free, but most people have it)
Graph
http://www.padowan.dk/graph/




                         Advantages over
                         Excel:

                         • Plot function

                         • Better curve
                           fitting options
Applets
http://phet.colorado.edu/
Ripple Tank
http://www.falstad.com
Google Earth
Wolfram Online Integrator
http://integrals.wolfram.com/index.jsp
Tracker
http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/

– Java based
– Much, more stable than it used to be
– Linear, rotational motion
– Easy to export data
– Cool new features
   • Perspective adjustment
   • Autotrack
Moving Centre of Rotation
Perspective correction
Autotrack
For Steve…
                                 Motion of top
                                                                         Time (s)
               0
                    0   0.05     0.1           0.15              0.2            0.25
             -0.2                                                                      200g
                                                                                       180g

             -0.4                                                                      160g
                                                                                       140g
             -0.6                                                                      120g
Height (m)




                                                                                       100g
             -0.8
                                                                                   h = -3.6535t

              -1                                                                h= -4.25t


             -1.2

                                                                              h = -5.7977t
             -1.4
                                                                        h = -6.7492t
                                          h = -10.056t   h = -7.7206t
             -1.6
With thanks to…
•   Graeme Finnie
•   Stanley Roache
•   Evan Simmers
•   Jared Lee
•   Oliver Hughes
Contact me if you want the list…
      kent.hogan@onslow.school.nz

Folder with some of the software (80MB ish)
                  see me

9.20 o13.2 k hogan