PASCO Science Workshop

The PASCO Science Workshop 700 series interface works in conjunction with the Mac Performa. The interface will enable experiments and demonstrations to be run and displayed using the computer. As an example, a varying voltage can be measured and the results displayed on the screen in the form of a graph and/or a meter and/or a table of values and/or a sequence of single readings. A graph of voltage would be appropriate for displaying the exponential decay of the voltage of a capacitor in an RC circuit, for instance.

The Science Workshop is easy to use, and is designed to be multi-purpose. PASCO sells over 25 different kinds of probes to be plugged in to the interface. We have several of these, including:

• photogate timers (as many as four can be plugged in at once)
• free-fall timers (also as many as four)
• a laser switch, which can be used to time the motion of large objects
• a Smart Pulley, which can be used to quantitatively examine straight-line motion demonstrations
• a rotary motion sensor, used for the quantitative examination of rotational motion
• voltage probes
• force sensors (we have two of these)
• a magnetic field sensor

If you'd like more information about using the Science Workshop in class, or you'd like to see it in action, feel free to drop by the demo room. A description of the Science Workshop is available at the PASCO web site. Also available is a demo version of the software, in both Mac and Windows formats, which shows off some of the capabilities of the Science Workshop.