Mobile Phone Rotational Dynamics Explorer

Live Script exploring inertial sensor data from a mobile phone attached to a rotating axle undergoing angular acceleration.

This Live Script explores sensor data from a mobile phone undergoing uniform angular acceleration and deceleration. The mobile phone is attached to axle of a wheel and axle apparatus and the axle is subject to a constant torque by a falling mass resulting in a spin-up of the axle and phone and then freely spins down. Linear accelerometer, angular velocity sensor and magnetometer data are collected. The spin-up angular acceleration is observed with the angular velocity sensor to be proportional to the weight of the mass and the spin-down angular acceleration is found to be nearly constant. The comparatively complex linear accelerometer sensor data is correlated with the angular velocity sensor data using a 2-dimensional model.

This script illustrates use of mobile phone inertial sensors in an introductory physics lab, along with data import and analysis techniques. The script may interest students and instructors in physics and related fields as well as those curious about mobile phone sensors. 'Try this' suggestions and coding 'Challenges' are included for further exploration.