Eureca Poster.pdf

Electronics labs are often run using materials that are expensive and complicated to use. At Penn State, typical experiments involve using PASCO's Data Studio software ($699) for data acquisition and control, and the Science Workshop 750 ($999) for connecting electronics components with the circuit. To address the issue of expense and ease of use, we created software and built hardware that permits students to use their own laptops and cell phones in place of the PASCO products for a range of labs involving circuit control. Total cost of the replacement equipment is less than $10 per setup.To drive the circuits, we developed an open sourced webpage built in HTML5 and Javascript - which ensures that it runs on the widest range of devices — that produces a sine-wave of particular frequency. This wave is transmitted via the device's headphones port through a custom built stereo cable as a sine-voltage at the same frequency, and depending on device and volume setting, it can be used to power the electronic labs. We have tested this software on four devices using three different web browsers to test for universal compatibility. Additionally, we tested it in for 3 experiments which are representative of AC circuits labs which previously used PASCO products , specifically a mutual inductance lab, LRC circuit lab, and RL filters lab. Although these labs were able to be run successfully, the frequency response of the phone and laptop sound cards required slight procedural changes compared to the usual PASCO labs. We present the performance results of these devices by lab and discuss ways in which we can improve the hardware and yet keep the cost low. We anticipate publishing procedures and plans for our software and hardware.