Please find below a review of the Logit Datavision supplied by Westholme School in Blackburn.....

Westholme School

Being a school for pupils ranging from 11 – 18 years we decided to trial the datalogger with pupils from both ends of our age range. As Year 7 pupils were currently studying the topic ‘Changes of State’, it seemed appropriate to use the logger to determine the melting point of ice. The temperature probe was inserted into a beaker packed with melting ice and the equipment was connected to our interactive whiteboard in the laboratory.

Pupils were immediately able to see a graphical representation of how the temperature varied with time and, crucially, how the temperature remained steady when it reached 0ºC. We then repeated the experiment with an ice / salt mixture which led to a discussion as to why we put salt on icy roads at this time of year.

This datalogging experiment was used with all four of our year 7 classes. All the teachers found the equipment reliable, quick and easy to use and appreciated the visual impact of the graphs obtained. It was so much better than viewing the liquid level on a thermometer. We liked the way the timescale axis, on Autolog, automatically adjusted to the amount of data fed into the logger. There was no need to set any scale before starting to log. This is obviously very useful when you don’t know exactly how long your experiment is going to take.

The sixth form were then asked to use the equipment to determine the enthalpy change for the reaction between zinc and copper sulphate by finding the temperature rise (?T) during the reaction. In this practical the equipment was used by the pupils themselves. They commented on the smart, compact size of the logger and particularly liked the screen, finding it similar to a graphical calculator. Its games console appearance appealed to the pupils.

The graph of temperature against time showed clear grid lines that allowed our A-level pupils to determine ?T with precision. Our current equipment provides a chart with no gridlines at all.
The pupils enjoyed using the datalogger and were able to take it back to their workstation as its use wasn’t restricted to being linked to a computer.The downloading of the remote datalogging was simple and quick to perform, allowing the pupils to easily print out a graph for their notes.

We would love to invest in several of these dataloggers as they are pupil friendly, reliable and very easy to use. They enhanced our teaching, and for pupils, provided a quick but accurate feedback on the data collected.
We certainly enjoyed the chance to trial this equipment and hope that our review of it will prove useful to other science departments.

Previous product reviews:

Regents Park Community College

We trialled the equipment with a group of able year 10 students, one of whom has described the activities below. The work fitted in very well with the physics topics PD1 Waves, and PD5 Application of Physics, in the OCR 1977 (syllabus B) course. It enabled us to demonstrate clearly how data can be transmitted using optical fibres and we invited the students to suggest further investigations for which the equipment could be used.

We used a variety of analogue sources to 'drive' the input, including a signal generator, radio, old record player and others, but we found the most fun was an MP3 player, as we got to choose the sounds we played.

Having set up the equipment, we first connected headphones, which we later changed for a small speaker. To get more output, we adapted a PC speaker set. The sound was perfect, but we did notice that it was best to turn down the MP3 a little, and increase the output volume as this reduced distortion.

We wanted to look at the output of the device a little more closely, so we added an oscilloscope to follow the trace. We improved this again by using a software oscilloscope which used the sound card of a laptop, which we then fed through a projector so the whole group could watch.

We even shone a laser pen directly down the fibre. This gave a very loud signal, which gave an excellent sine wave on the oscilloscope. We thought of connecting the oscilloscope at other points of the circuit, but thought we might damage it. We were now ready to do some experiments. The first thing we did was to disconnect the fibre optic connection to the transmit circuit. To our surprise, we found that it was possible to move it some way from the LEDs, and still get a good signal. This enabled us to investigate the transmission of various materials. We found that the signal was lost completely using a single sheet of card, whereas a sheet of tracing paper made the signal quieter. We also thought of using a glass chamber which we could fill with gas, and see what effect that might have. We could also use it to see how foggy it was. (Someone wondered if it might be possible to make a cable to transmit higher energy electromagnetic waves, but we decided to leave that for now).

Covering one of the LEDs, we lined the circuit board up on a protractor, with the fibre optic cable in a clamp. Using this set up, it was possible to investigate what angle we could align the cable to the diode, and still get a signal. We decided it may be interesting to investigate if there were other coloured LEDs used in fibre optics.

The gap in the light path also let us test other fibres. We saw that we could use different glass fibres, and other materials to complete the gap.

There were a whole range of experiments that we did in class for light and sound which we could now make much more interesting. Now instead of just shining a ray of light, we could transmit a signal (and listen to our favourite music at the same time - all in the name of science, of course!). We repeated the diffraction experiments using a glass block. Someone wondered if, since the light had travelled more slowly through the block, we might see a delay between the light through the glass, and a beam which had not gone through the block. We decided the effect would probably be too small to show with the equipment we had.

We all decide that the equipment was great fun. Being able to transmit data as light, and using a very coherent beam gave a number of classical experiments a new and exciting twist.

Dr Alan P Glaze
Regents Park Community College