Real lab exercises over the web:

Remote Data Collection.

with Ray Wisman

1. Why Do a Remote Lab?

• Provide access to equipment from home or other locations away from the lab.
• Provide multiple access to a single piece of expensive equipment.
• Collect data from a remote or dangerous location.
• Access data from many different remote locations simultaneously.
• Access experiments from multiple platforms (Mac, PC, Linux) using the same, web based interface.
• Provide experiments that take longer than a typical 2.5 hr lab period.

2. Examples of things we have tried:

• Collection of light intensities at remote sites across the U.S.
(Continuous simultaneous collection from multiple sites over several days.)
• Turn on a remote sound source and take a sample using JAVA oscilloscope.
• Remote collection of radioactive decay data. (Potential for semester long decay experiments).
• Remote data collection for lab class (ELF/ULF project).
(Multiple students simultaneously collect data from antennas located at a remote listening post.)
• Remote oscilloscope.
(Computer science students tell a remote computer to send a digital signal of their choice. They capture and analyze the signal using a JAVA oscilloscope.)
• Remote and local data collection from a sound card as A/D device.
(From any computer on the internet! TCP2SoundCard software available from us.)
• Remote video capture.
• FFT sound labs for introductory calculus based lab class.

• Part one: LabPro is attached to local computer with microphone. Students bring instruments to make sound samples and use Excel to analyze samples.

• Part two: Students change one cell in Excel to sample and analyze an "unknown" source located at a remote site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Advantages of doing the easy way:

• Easy; can be made to work with Excel as the front end. 
• Will work with ANY serial device.
• Will work locally or remotely over the Internet.
• Inexpensive (<$300 for the LabPro). Platform independent.
• Students have complete control of the experiment.
• Potential for new kinds of experiments (data collection by multiple simultaneous users from multiple sites).
• Free software available at:    Http://Physics.ius.edu/Projects.html

physics.ius.edu