Vernier Video Physics app for iPhone and iPad
Video Physics brings automated object tracking and video analysis to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Capture video of an object in motion, then tap to track automatically. Video Physics instantly creates trajectory, position, and velocity graphs for the object.
Video Physics is perfect for science students and instructors. Perform on-the-go analysis of interesting motion. Measure the velocity of a childs swing, a roller-coaster, or a car. Or, take a video of a basketball free throw shot. Video Physics will display the path of the ball and provide graphs of y vs. x as well as the x and y position and velocity as a function of time.
Features of Video Physics:
• Capture a new video using the built-in camera, choose a video from your Photo Library, or use one of our sample videos
• Track an object automatically or manually add points to the video frame
• Set the scale of the video using an object of known size
• Optionally set coordinate system location and rotation
• View graphs of trajectory and x/y position and velocity
• Export video with points
• Email the video and data for further analysis in Verniers Logger Pro software for OS X and Windows
• Open data files directly in Verniers Graphical Analysis app
Quotes from physics teachers:
"Just played with new Vernier video physics app on iPhone - it ROCKS! I remember the day when this wouldve cost thousands of dollars to do
." Mark Hines @mhines, teacher
"You should check out Verniers Video Physics app. Students can email video analysis data to Logger Pro; very cool!!" @willkomme, physics teacher
Vernier’s Video Physics app is slick. - Ryan Bretag @ryanbretag, teacher and administrator
App Store featured: Staff Favorite, New and Noteworthy, and Whats Hot!
2012 CODiE Awards Finalist - Best Educational Use of a Mobile Device
Hints for taking useful videos:
• Objects that are very different than their background (black/white) work best for automated tracking. It is also helpful to use a background with uniform color and shading. See our sample videos for examples.
• Do not move the camera. Analysis assumes the camera is fixed in position.
• The object in motion should remain approximately in a plane perpendicular to the viewing direction.
• Place an object with known dimensions, such as a meter stick, in the same plane as the motion. Use this to scale the video.
Video Physics is intended for use in science education. The video analysis done in Video Physics provides a useful technique for studying two-dimensional kinematics. You can do even more with Verniers Graphical Analysis app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch or with Logger Pro software for Mac OS X and Windows.
Pros and cons of Vernier Video Physics app for iPhone and iPad
Vernier Video Physics app good for
Easy enough to use for all of my students and a whole lot simpler than trying to install software on the school computers. Tried it for one activity using my personal iPad and my students decided that they would like to have the app on their iPods and iPhones. This app helps to skip past the tedium of measuring and graphing and moving directly to analyzing data.
I havent learned how to have students share videos and graphs without using the school WiFi network but this seems to be a limitation of the platform and not the app.
With an iPad, this app is pretty awesome! Exporting to Logger Pro is even better! Im probably still on the learning curve, but I havent figured out how to maintain the measurement reference. Still, this is going to be a staple in my physics class!
This app is a useful tool for kinematics, especially projectiles.
Advantages:
This is a lot better than the old-school method of tracing motion on overheads taped to a TV screen. Simply take a video, indicate the location of your axes and a scale object, and mark the location of the moving object in each frame. (Simple, but tedious.) Then you get nice kinematics graphs.
Shortcomings:
It would be nice to be able to compensate for camera movement (by, say, indicating the location of fixed objects) and there seems to be no way to take high-speed videos to analyze fast objects. (One can use another app to do that and import the video, but thats an extra step, and an extra purchase.)
As a middle school science teacher in an iPad school, this app has been very useful. Capturing data is a snap (use a iPad camera stand) and analyzing it is instantaneous (the App does the math). Students can focus quickly on what the charts "say," rather than spend hours trying to make charts. The only downside (4 stars, not 5) is that the timer cannot be set to 0.00 sec at the start of the action. There are times when it would be helpful to be able to start the timer with the first marking dot.
Some bad moments
Son was suggested to use this app for a physics experiment. It was difficult to use, has very poor documentation of how to use and he basically had to plot all the data in excel to generate the graphs he needed for his experiment. Do not recommend this app!
Ive been using LoggerPro for about six or seven years, so I knew pretty much what to expect. For the most part I got it. My 2g Touch crashed the ap the first time I tried to analyze, but worked great from then on out. The graphs are entirely recognizable on their famous basketball video. Im sure a little more practice would make me better, but it is a little difficult to see the crosshairs against the background, especially that wooden paneling. I tried the baseball video also, but couldnt see the ball. I would suggest two improvements for five stars; 1) zoom in capability (I realize the difficulty here) and 2) crosshairs that can color change to make them easier to see in more situations. Im so psyched about this ap though, despite the room for improvement. Im definitely going to be spreading the word.
This is a great concept from Vernier. I have loved using the LoggerPro video analysis with my class for years. The only issue I have with the software is that targeting and clicking with a second finger is a bit odd since you cant see your targeted object since your finger covers it. It might be nice if a button was added to select the target after you already know youve got it in the crosshairs. 4/5
No zoom function. This makes plotting points to be very inaccurate for small objects.
My students figure out how to use it. I cant figure it out. Not intuitive.
Very easy to use; good data; easy to transfer data and analysis to Facebook or to email. Students loved using it. Good job Vernier!
