Maybe your Physics curriculum is looking rather boring. Or, you need a science fair experiment really quick! An accelerometer is a versatile tool for making fun and informative science experiments. First, we recommend learning to use "R" for analyzing the data. R is a powerful scripting language used commonly by scientists to analyze large data sets. We provide several R scripts in our example applications. R is free to download from cran.r-project.org. Once you have R, here are a several interesting experiments to consider trying:

• Vibration Analysis of New Tires. An X2-5 logger is used to evaluate the vibration performance of new tires on a Mazda3 car. An R script analyzes the data to show the new tires reduced the overall vibration by 15-25%.

• Calculate gravity using a simple pendulum. The accelerometer logger is attached to a swinging pendulum. The data is analyzed to deterime the period of oscillation, which is then used to calculate gravity.

• Determine the resonant frequency of a 2-liter bottle. This fun experiment shows how a Helmoholtz resonator works and how the volume determines the frequency of resonance.

• Track the g's of a roller coaster. Load the kids into the station wagon and head to Walley World with an accelerometer. Fun and excitement is sure to ensue. We provide an R script here to analyze and plot the motion of a roller coaster.

• Do you have a Raspberry Pi? Use our SSP-x serial accelerometer sensor to build a clothes dryer monitor and receive a SMS text message when the clothes are ready.

Helmholtz Resonator

This simple experiment uses a 2-liter bottle and an X16-1E accelerometer to demonstrate Helmholtz's equation for a resonating a cavity. The test procedure is then applied to a subwoofer speaker to determine the enclosure resonance frequency and speaker performance.

Counting Freight Trains

An X2-1 high sensitivity accelerometer logger is used to monitor the traffic on a railway and provide the spectral response of a passing freight train.

Monitoring Your Clothes Dryer with the SSP-x Accelerometer

Learn how to use a Raspberry Pi and the SSP-x to monitor the status of your clothes dryer. When the dryer is finished, a text message is sent to your smartphone.

Flush Fun

The X2-5 logger was used to detect when water flushed into a toilet. Actually, this experiment was unexpectedly interesting.

Pendulum Experiment

So much has changed over the years. Has the gravataional constant, or the mass of the earth changed the local gravitational field lately? We decided to perform this simple pendulum experiment and find out.

• PDF version of report here:

  Calculating the Acceleration of Gravity Using an Accelerometer Data Logger.pdf)

Roller Coasters

A detailed look at the Incredible Hulk roller coaster ride at Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure.

Kite Altitude

Strap a B1100-1 barometric pressure data logger to a kite and see how high a kite flies.