If you use a light sensor you can measure the flicker of a fluorescent tube light or see how the flicker from two tubes interact. Use a voltage sensor and drop a magnet through a coil and you see the pulse of electricity it generates. Combining this power with sensors that measure force, distance and acceleration lets you do new experiments that show Newton s Laws directly. You can for example, show his second law by a attaching a trolley to a spring and measuring how the acceleration changes with the force on the spring. The distance sensor may be more familiar it measures by sending out sound waves and seeing how quickly they bounce back.
Younger pupils can learn about distance-time graphs as they see how it responds to their movement.
Older students can fix it to a runway and see how fast a trolley runs in countless experiments on forces. Teachers will appreciate how neatly this device clips to a runway and its shape protects the sensor from knocks. This suits it to advanced level work, and merits it a place in a design gallery. With these measuring tools helping to make ideas accessible, older equipment such as ticker timers and even light gates, each an amazing invention for their time, start to seem inadequate. While physics teachers have the most fun, chemists will find pH electrodes and all they would want.