Videos for buggy lab from home

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Comments: 3

Many teachers introduce the constant velocity model with a paradigm lab in which students measure the time and position of a buggy, record this data, and then plot the data.

With COVID-19 requiring many of us to do remote teaching this fall, I wanted to provide videos that students could use at home. I shot these videos with a cell phone gimbal to stabilize the video.

If you look at the video while it is moving, it is hard to read the position, but if you pause the video, it is quite clear.

Below are the first two videos I have created. On the tape measure, the numbers that appear upside-down should be considered negative numbers. The two tape measures meet in the middle at each of their zero positions.

I am working on other buggy videos, please leave a comment if there is something that would help these videos work for your classroom.

Ready to go videos

Blue buggy 1
Blue buggy 2

Beta version video

The video below includes a stopwatch on the car. This was an early video, and the quality is not good enough for students to read the position, but let me know if you like the stopwatch (my plan is to have both available, so teachers can chose the version they want their students to use).

Lee

3 Responses

  1. Hi Lee,
    First of all – thank you for sharing these! My colleague and I have making these videos on our to do list and using these would save us effort – thank you!
    On the first two videos, I can see the measuring tape pretty clearly. My only concern is that using the timer on the video lacks a little precision. But maybe running the video in slow motion will help with getting decent data. I didn’t try to record or plot so not sure how much it matters.
    On the beta video – I like that you have the timer to the 0.1 second, but I think because of the proximity of the camera, I couldn’t make out the numbers on the measuring tape. Maybe you know this already – but just thought I’d share.
    Thanks again!

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