A common piece of physics lab equipment is a device called a “fan cart.” Perhaps you used one yourself when you were in high school of college? A fan cart is essentially a low-friction dynamics cart, commonly used to study motion, momentum, energy, etc., fitted with a motor and propeller or “fan.” The fan provides a constant force, which conveniently produces a constant acceleration. Fan carts are available from science lab supply vendors, but some are cheap, break easily, and lack features while other higher quality fan carts are sometimes expensive for science departments on a budget. I have designed a low-cost, programmable fan cart that fits in existing dynamics carts (most physics labs already have dynamics carts), and this Instructable describes how to make one.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.