High School + Physics + Linux = ? 74
earlums25 asks: ""I'm a high school physics teacher stuck in a school where not only is Windows rampant, but the sysadmin isn't interested in alternatives. I want to present a case where my
students could use Linux boxes instead of Windows for the purpose of showing them there are alternatives. The major obstacle is that I haven't found software for Linux that would take the place of 'Precision Timer,' a piece of software that allows students to connect photogates through a Pasco 6500 interface. The software would need to recognize the input signal which comes in through the Pasco interface (a 1/4 inch plug connected the gameport), record time, plot data, print/save data and plots, and do basic calculation of speeds, accelerations, averages and standard deviations. Any ideas?"
Sounds lie... (Score:1, Redundant)
Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've written tons of drivers for little components like that. It shouldn't be too hard to do. The software on top of the driver is another story. It might take a while to implement depending on the feature set required.
ObClassicVariationOfOldJoke (Score:4, Funny)
A: 9.8 m/s^2
(rimshot)
Re:ObClassicVariationOfOldJoke (Score:1)
I replied with the following:
1) Open window
2) Pick up computer
3) Throw computer out of windows
4) Viola - 9.8m/s^2 acceleration!
Drivers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Drivers (Score:1)
Re:Drivers (Score:1)
Re:Drivers (Score:2)
My personal approach would be to just get some photogates, wire them up to a parallel cable, and write some simple code like you describe. That seems like it would be a lot easier than trying to deal with somebody elses black box crap.
Re:Drivers (Score:2)
Shoot, a few recycled Mac IIci's would do the trick...
Too much free time? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are teaching Physics, so teach Physics. I agree with you, alternative OS's exist and are often viable, occasionally superior to what is being used but you are trying to impose your religious views (OS Holy Wars) on young impressionable minds (I commend you on that, get em while they are young) in a classroom completely unrelated to operating systems, computers, religious freedom, etc. Additionally, you are trying to shoehorn the new OS where it isn't an obvious (nor an excellent) fit - the tools are not readily available.
What would you say when the biology teacher came to you with the following dilemma - they already have microscopes, paid for, supported by the current staff, that are working
If you want to teach alternative OS's, offer to create a new class, or even an after-school workshop. That way you could dedicate the needed resources (your time, efforts) to the computer side without getting the Physics in the middle of it.
That said ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This kills three birds with one stone -
1. instant solution, the data aquisition issue is resolved,
2. if IT comes in you can point to the Windows box and they will be happy,
3. you get to demonstrate alernative OS's, even demonstrate interoperability techniques.
Re:That said ... (Score:1)
Physicists/mathematicians I know use Fortran on miscellaneous unices, but yeah. *However* that's just for the number crunching. They use other tools for data presentation, and that's really what's needed here. Fortran is not the answer here.
Re:That said ... (Score:1)
Re:Too much free time? (Score:2)
I'd like to honestly ask the submitter why Linux is so important to his Physics ciriculum. I'm sure the system admin will ask the same question.
Now if you were a CS teacher, I'd see your point, but a physics professor? Sorry, chum. OS Theory isn't a physics thing.
Re:Too much free time? (Score:1)
Old Fashioned (Score:1)
Re:Old Fashioned (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Old Fashioned (Score:1)
I think my least favorite labs were the one that used a "spark timer" that sparked 10 times per second and we accelerated a cart with the spark hitting a piece of "spark tape" as it went and then measured the distances between them. However, we did have some little cameras that hooked to the computer and we used "Videopoint" to do all of that stuff, that was pretty interesting.
Re:Old Fashioned (Score:1)
Re:Old Fashioned (Score:2)
Even my junior college physics department has photogates!
Re:Old Fashioned (Score:1)
Man, am I glad that's over. From what I hear, they just replaced that system last year with early-Pentium boxen...
Re:Old Fashioned (Score:1)
Re:Old Fashioned (Score:1)
Odd hardware? (Score:2)
I dont see why this couldnt be built using fairly easy-to-come-by components - IE, an IR LED, an IR Detector simply connected by paralell port. While the detector is true, keep counting, if its false, your beam got broken and you can count that as you need. The software would be rather simple. The hardest part will be doing the polling to the accuracy you need.
Shrug... Unless there is anything special that hardware can do that you cant recreate simply, do it that way.
In highschool the hardware we were using was on the Mac. Dont think its at all device dependent.
Heck, get ambitious and work on getting a plotting function too.
If theres a CS department at the school I bet you could get some help developing some of the routines, save the device driver.
Re:Odd hardware? (Score:2)
Uhm, I don't get it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Uhm, I don't get it? (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's working with Windows, why not use Windows?
That's a very good question, one that another poster hit on as well. If it works, stick with it.
That's all fine and good if you want to stick safely with the status quo. If you think the status quo is perfect, can't be improved upon, and can be relied upon to serve your needs satisfactorily forever more, then, by all means, stick with status quo.
To my mind, a genuine educational experience includes constant probing at the limits of knowledge, questioning the status quo, looking for other ways of doing things, trying different things, and digging into the fundamentals of how things work in ways that "black box" approaches can not satisfy completely.
Having teachers with such attitudes is important in fostering the same kind of enthusiasm for new ideas in their students. When I'm 80 years old, I'll appreciate having students with questioning minds and broad problem-solving skills, not willing to capitulate to the status quo too easily. My medical care will depend upon researchers with that same kind of attitude making discoveries over the next several decades. I don't want them to be satisfied with the status quo.
As an aside, in the long term there's evidence that schools will end up paying substantial money to maintain the status of their Microsoft License Agreements. If there's anything true about most high schools, it's that there is never enough money to go around to achieve all the goals that people would like. Given a choice between spending money on Licensing 6 and spending money on teachers for drama, art, physics, foreign languages, I think many schools would love to be able to choose the latter if they thought they had a choice.
I commend this H.S. physics teacher for looking into open alternatives. Not just because it will introduce his students to a broadening experience (Macs would be good here, too), but because it helps open the door a little further in allowing his school to at least have a choice in the future, rather than be summarily locked into a all-MS "solution".
Re:Path out may be long (Score:1, Informative)
Shut up and teach (Score:3, Insightful)
In high school (but a few years ago) I had a great physics teacher that used whatever she needed to use to teach us. We were doing some speed and sounds based experimentation and for the recording hardware she had there were existing drivers for the science lab macs that were a good 4 - 5 years old, so thats what we used. No one gave two shits that it was on a Mac, we were there to learn physics and my teacher was there to teach it, not press her personal preferences for OS during class time.
On the contrary, in my calculus class the teacher tried to use computers and teach a large group of non-technical people to program thier calculators (ti-83 was the standard) to do the calc for them. Now i can see this as being a good thing to save us the tedium of solving a more basic problem as part of a new problem to isolate the concepts of the new material. However, we lost a full 3 DAYS of class time fucking with the calculators which would have been better spent teaching us. Now I really didnt mind sitting in the corner taking 15 minutes to poke the program in then playing nibbles or drugwar for the next 2.5 classes...
My point is that there is no reason for you to change the technological base of a class/cirriculum UNLESS that change will help to illustrate a concept and teach your students. If there was some whiz-bang hot shit program or hardware that was linux only, then by all means please put it in place, but make damn sure it works without fail. A student having to make up a lab or stay late because you had to go dink with someing in
Mac as an alternative (Score:1)
FWIW
Eh? (Score:1)
Are you serious? What does this have to do with physics?
And why replace working Windows computers with non-working Linux ones for the purpose of showing alternatives?
You people are crazy. At least the aforementioned sysadmin is seeing some sense.
Some more information would be helpful (Score:2)
With more information, an open source developer such as myself could probably whip up a user-space driver that uses the generic Linux joystick API in a day's worth of spare time, without even needing the hardware.
There's already gnuplot to graph the datapoints once they've been acquired, too, or I've got lots of experience writing graphics stuff (I've written a 3D modeller, a 2D/3D function grapher, a linux framebuffer graphics library [sourceforge.net], some undistributed xmms plugins,
Re:Some more information would be helpful (Score:1)
showing alternatives (Score:4, Insightful)
But, I don't think this is the proper setting to demonstrate this idea. The whole point of alternatives is choosing the best solution for the task at hand. Here you've got a case where the alternate tool does not have the necessary functionality, at least not without extra development work. It doesn't have support from any of the administation, and indeed would probably draw some degree of negativity. And it's not saving any money or other resources, because clearly the Windows PCs and their software have already been purchased, configured, and work just fine.
Don't force the square peg in the round hole. There are many times when the alternatives make sense, and this is not one of them.
What you should instead do is find a task to which Linux and free software are suited. Try having an assignment where the kids use Octave or gnuplot or something like that to analyze their data. Surely there's some task that would require the purchase of non-free software for Windows that can be done with free software on Linux. It doesn't even have to be a very involved task, but perhaps if you had the basic skeleton/framework script setup and the kids just enter their data and get an advanced analysis.
If it doesn't violate policy, offer to also let the kids use this linux computer in between classes or after school, to surf the web or type assignments or whatever. Surely you will get a few curious kids that want to screw around on it since it's different. A few might want to use it if other labs are full, or they don't have a computer at home, or it's simply convenient at the time, or whatever. Point is, they'll get some exposure even if it's not an integral part of the class (i.e., not driving your lab hardware.)
Better Uses For Your Time (Score:2)
where Linux shines (Score:2)
Where Linux (or any Unix) shines is collecting real time data over long periods of time. Windows, at least the most brain-dead versions, were actually better for collecting data over short periods of time since the data logging program could take over the system. But short of dedicated embedded OSes nothing can be Unix/Linux for low-profile systems that can log data for months without ever requiring a reboot, it can simultaneously run data collection, analysis and publication programs, etc. Windows (short of NT) has proven remarkably inept at this.
The problem is that there's not a whole lot you can do in a HS physics lab that requires collecting data over such long periods. The late "Amateur Scientist" column in Scientific American had a lot of great ideas, but they are real science. At the HS level, you need trivial experiements that can be performed and understood by the average HS physics student. (I know, some of them could do the experiments mentioned, or better yet inspired, but that column. But only a small number of these students.)
inertia (Score:2)
However, you could use the inertia metaphor to describe why Windows dominates.
Talk to the computer teacher (Score:2)
Did anyone look at the specs? (Score:2)
You can measure events that accurately with the gameport, sound card, parallel port or even a serial port.
The photogate has a simple 3 wire digital interface. I betcha that the 3 wires are ground, +5volts and a logic level output. If you can't find the interface documentation on the web, you can use a voltmeter or oscilliscope to figure out the signal.
Here's a way to use the serial port as an accurate timer, even if your OS has terrible latency. Connect a 40 kohm resistor between data out and data in of the serial port. Drive the input of an opto isolator off of your photogate (which is an also opto-isolator, but I like redundancy). Use the opto-isolator to pull data in to +5 through a 1kohm resistor.
So when the opto isolator is off, data will flow through the serial port, when it is on, data won't flow. When the isolator switches, it will corrupt a character. Send an easy to decode series of characters down the serial port, say, 00000001:00000002: etc... Dump the data to a file. See what characters are missing to tell when the isolator is on.
At 115kbaud, each bit is 8.68 microseconds, each character is 86.8 microseconds. So character level timing is good enough, you don't even have to look at the bits of corrupted characters. You can look at those bits for more precision.
Figuring out speeds and accelarations from raw timing data is an excellent project for physics students.
Re:Did anyone look at the specs? (Score:1)
The students can easily explore that, while the comment submitter (if up to the task) can pull together the necessary code and/or lab equipment to have a custom-made presentation that could be extremely informative.
Some one mod this parent up!!!
Ideas... (Score:2)
Unless you can tell me some good advantage of using linux (other than "showing them there are alternatives"), don't do it...
Your sysadmin is right. He has given you a solution that works, you use it. End of story.
Is there some specific linux software you want to use? Are you sure it can't run on Windows? Or has good alternatives that run on Windows? Sounds to me you are just trolling your sysadmin *and* your students.
Hell, why not go all the way, and insist on a AS/400-only solution, just to show them that there are alternatives, right?
Or better yet, buy a class-set of gameboys (and one of those eprom burners), and develop a data-collection solution for them in assembly language. Now, that's an alternative nobody would think about.
But of course, if you want a real computer, you should buy a real game-console, maybe a Dreamcast running NetBSD would be the ideal solution. I'm sure it could be made to work, and your students would surely be much wiser about "alternatives".
But of course, the best solution would be to set up a cluster of bluetooth-enabled java-cellphones that communicate over ipx to do the calculations and display, and let a C64 with a soldered on modern gameport to do the data-collection. Of course, you will need to distribute the data to the cluster through the C64's serial-port to a laptop runnin OS/2, which can convert the signal into something the bluetooth-devices can understand. Extra credits if you can make all the cellphones display a large graph by putting their displays next to each other. Don't mention linux, most students have already heard about it, remember, it's alternatives we are looking for, right?
Or you could just teach physics...
RTLinux and realtime processing (Score:2)
I had a physiology professor in Boston who was using this in precision timing experiments. "RTLinux was created to resolve what has long been considered an inescapable dilemma: to produce a simple real-time system that does not restrict access to the power of hardware platforms." A company called FSMLabs now supports it. See: http://www.fsmlabs.com/community/ Check out the projects page for good examples of what this can be used for (mostly situations where you have to measure real-world events in picoseconds.)
You are supposed to teach Physics (Score:1)
1. You where getting new computers.
2. If there was some great open source tools that only work on Linux.
3. You had gotten a bunch of hand me down systems that just didn't cut it but could work using Linux.
You are supposed to teach Physics. If you have a computer program in your school they should be teaching that they are other OS's not you.
If you want to do write an Open source solution for other schools to use I think that would be great but right now teach them Physics.
Re:Teach Physics, not Religion (Score:1)
Linux is so much more flexible, scriptable, and has so many more scientific applications available for free.. it would take a fanatic or fanatically ignorant IT department to shove windows down these poor physicists throats.
Turn it into a project? (Score:1)
But it's also true that in most physics labs, one of the daily tasks is writing data collection and instrument control software. While a lot of that is done using LabView, I see no reason --at least in a teaching setting where the needs are fairly basic-- not to try an alternative.
So what I suggest you do is to consider having a 'computational experimental physics' project whose ultimate goal is writing precisely such software. It would give your students _extremely_ valuable experience, and would show them first hand what I consider to be Linux's biggest strength. To me the power of Linux isn't so much that it's free, but that out of the box you get every language, compiler and development tool under the sun.
So get your students involved, and think of it as a great opportunity to learn how to write a small C library to read data off that port, probably coupled with a Numeric Python back end for data processing and a PyQt front end for the plotting and control (perhaps driving a Gnuplot window).
That's what I would do at least.
Cheers.
The horse is dead so let me beat it more (Score:1)
Maybe the students AND the teacher should work on this project of porting to Linux since nearly every physics dept requires programming computer experience beyond the usual MS programs of the masses.
It might be very easy to port (Score:1)