Exploring Newton’s Second Law and Kinetic Friction Using the Accelerometer Sensor in Smartphones (Journal Article)

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Abstract-

Decades of improvements in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have enabled high-performance compact sensors to become routinely integrated into smartphones. When combined with incredible touch screen displays, high-performance microprocessors for data analysis, and high-speed data transfer rates using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, smartphones provide an unprecedented capability for conducting scientific investigations. The remarkable capability of smartphones to sense the world around us combined with the nearly universal availability to high school and college students has the potential to revolutionize inquiry-based learning in physics education. In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of this underused potential. Physics experiments enabled by the sensors embedded in smartphones have recently been reviewed by O’Brien1 and a growing number of resources are available online.2–4 This paper describes a simple approach for determining the coefficient of kinetic friction, which simultaneously incorporates the opportunity for students to explore many of the foundational disciplinary core ideas in mechanics using smartphones.