Ollie

Big Physics Week

The last week of term before Easter we declared Big Physics Week for S3 pupils.  The best data logging equipment was made available to our researchers so that they could investigate in depth a topic of their choice. Two of the projects involved the use of Vertigo; mountain biking down the school's track and parkour. 

Software issues meant that data processing had to be done on a spreadsheet.  This gave the pupils an instant appreciation of just how much data they had collected.  The pupils looked at the raw data GPS, accelerations and gyro.  From this they created graphs.

The pupils wanted to show distance and velocity graphs.  I had to do the conversion of lat, long and height into distance from the start.  I am happy with the distance v time graph.

From the distance conversions I calculated speed. The speed graph was very messy.

I used some conditional damping on the speed data to try to smooth out the graph.

After the holiday it will be good to see what the pupils can do with all this new data.

Snow Day

I enlisted the help of my daughters classmates to test vertigo on a sledging run.

Its a bumpy ride as shown by the Z acceleration peaking at 5g.

The google map is too green.

First Project Proposal

The handwriting is not the best, but here is my first Vertigo project proposal from Danny, Kal and Seb.  It involves Danny doing a bit of parkour.  Now how to write a risk assessment for a front flip on grass which he can (hopefully) do.

Then This Happened

So I found out that the connections to the battery are easily detached. Soldering them back requires a very fine tipped iron and, for me a big magnifying glass. There was a surprising miniature circuit on the end of the battery.  Technology has moved on.

I am taking no chances on it happening again with the wires taped down and the battery attached to the vertigo. Back up and running again.

Cartwheel

My volunteer managed a cartwheel while wearing the vertigo on her right leg.

Due to the way I attached the vertigo x is now in the z direction so much of the data looks strange at first glance.

My interpretation of the Raw gyro is that the rotational velocity in the x (up) and y(forward) directions was around 200 deg/s.  The rotation increases in the second half of the cartwheel as her legs come down. Rotation is a minimum at the top.  The z data shows a slight side to side wobble.  Interestingly my gymnast has a problem with this simple manoeuvre on beam, landing off centre and often missing the beam.  Working to reduce the wobble in the z direction could improve this.

Making Vertigo wearable

Today's project involves getting a willing volunteer to wear the Vertigo while doing gymnastics.  I am still waiting for my gymnast to surface (typical teenager).  A quick rummage through the gifts I was once upon a time given for Christmas but never used and I found the jogging armband for my old ipod nano.  The vertigo is a good snug fit and the battery tucks under out of the way.  There is easy access to the on/off and record switches.  The only issue is x is now z, y is x and z is y.  This will have to be taken account of later.
Wakey Wakey we have a science experiment to do.