Accelab

Accelab is an educational app that helps students collect the data for three physics labs: a cart on an air track, a projectile, and circular motion.

Choose the experiment first, then one of two ways to measure it: ⋅ Camera (recommended for the air track): film the cart with your iPhone, or choose a video you already have. Mark any known length in the shot, and Accelab follows the cart through the video. It can follow an object in flight, or a marker going round, the same way. ⋅ Sensor: attach your iPhone to the cart, or lay it flat on a turntable, and measure its motion with the built-in sensors.

Accelab can help you: ⋅ Make sure that your air track is set up with the angle you chose ⋅ Collect the distance-time data of your cart as it travels down the air track ⋅ Collect the x and y position of a projectile against time, with your iPhone levelled first ⋅ Collect the position and angle of a marker going round a circle against time, filmed from above ⋅ Measure the angular velocity and the centripetal and tangential acceleration of a turntable against time, with your iPhone lying on it ⋅ Check the tracked points on the video and correct any of them by hand ⋅ Create a CSV file with the collected data, or copy it straight into Desmos: all of it, or just the two columns for the graph you want to plot ⋅ Save a photo of the run with every tracked point marked on it ⋅ Come back to your finished runs later in Past Runs

Accelab is an open-source project developed by a student.