Page 3 – AYVA Educational Solutions

Wireless Sensors are Now Stocked in Oakville!

Here are just a few of the products currently available! If you need something quickly, please give us a call @ 877-967-2726. We can ship across Canada for delivery within a few days for all Canadian stocked items.

Also in-stock & on sale!!

Many of PASCO’s wireless sensors are now stocked in Oakville, Ontario.

Smart Carts
Red: ME-1240
Blue: ME-1241

Wireless pH Sensor
PS-3204

Wireless Light Sensor
PS-3213

Wireless Temperature Sensor
PS-3201

Wireless Sound Sensor
PS-3227

Wireless EKG Sensor
PS-3236

Wireless Spirometer
PS-3234

Wireless Force Sensor
PS-3202

Wireless Soil Moisture Sensor
PS-3228

Airlink
PS-3200

Wireless Acceleration Sensor
PS-3223

Wireless Colorimeter
PS-3215

Wireless Pressure Sensor
PS-3203

Wireless Rotary Motion Sensor
PS-3220

Wireless Temperature Link
PS-3222

Wireless Conductivity Sensor
PS-3210

pH Probe Storage Solution

How do I make a pH probe storage solution to replace any spilled from the probe’s storage bottle?

This solution is appropriate for any of PASCO’s sensors with pH probes, including the pH (PS-2102), Water Quality (PS-2169), Chemistry (PS-2170), Advanced Chemistry (PS-2172) sensors Advanced Water Quality Sensor (PS-2230), and the PS-3204 Wireless pH Sensor.

Physics in Soccer: World Cup 2022

The 2022 World Cup has officially begun, and there’s never been a better time to explore the physics of soccer (or in Europe, football) with your students! From predicting the outcome of a crossbar challenge to understanding the science behind Ronaldo’s famous knuckleball free kick, physics plays an important role in determining which team rules the pitch.

Throughout the World Cup, we’ll be sharing soccer-themed content to help you bring the excitement of the World Cup into your physics course. In our first segment, we’ll explore the physics of soccer’s most infamous pre-match event: the crossbar challenge.

The Physics of Soccer: Crossbar Challenge

The crossbar challenge is a popular pre-game competition held between players from opposing teams. To compete, players take turns kicking soccer balls into the crossbar of a goal. The player who hits the crossbar the most wins the crossbar challenge. Seems simple enough, right? Well, not exactly!

In reality, the crossbar challenge is, well, challenging. The average player is lucky to land two of their five shots, which makes the five-for-five performances of superstars like Neymar Jr. all the more impressive. In fact, Neymar’s success in crossbar challenges is so repeatable that it begs the question: what is Neymar doing that other soccer players aren’t? (Check out this video to see Neymar demonstrate his technique in a crossbar challenge against two other professional soccer players.)

As it turns out, there is a secret to Neymar’s success: physics! When a player kicks a soccer ball, its landing position is largely determined by both the aerodynamics of the ball and the angle, direction, and velocity of the player’s kick. If we ignore aerodynamics for a moment (more on that later), then the crossbar challenge becomes a real-world example of projectile motion.

Incorporate the World Cup into your physics course with these soccer-themed projectile motion problems! Download the student worksheet for free below.

Celebrate the World Cup with these Soccer-Themed Practice Problems!

Download the free Physics in Soccer student handout and answer key below.

1. While warming up for a match at the World Cup, Neymar challenges Aleksandar Mitrović to a crossbar challenge. Both players must take their shot 11 meters away from the goal, but the angle and speed of their kicks can vary. The crossbar is 2.4 meters above the ground. Assuming air resistance is negligible, answer the following questions:

a. If Neymar kicks the ball at a 40° angle, and it takes .87 seconds to hit the crossbar, what must the initial speed of the ball be?

b. Mitrović launches the ball at a 41° angle with a velocity of 18.4 m/s. It flies through the air, passing 1 meter above the crossbar. How long is the ball in the air?

c. Challenge Question: The next round, Mitrović kicks the ball with an initial velocity of 21.0 m/s. Determine the minimum and maximum kicking angles required for the ball to make contact with the crossbar.

2. During a World Cup match, Lionel Messi kicks the ball at a 45° angle from ground level. It reaches a maximum height of 3.2 meters and lands 22.7 meters down the pitch. Assuming air resistance is negligible, answer the following questions:

a. What is the initial vertical velocity of the ball?

b. How long does it take for the soccer ball to reach the ground?

c. What is the initial horizontal velocity of the ball?

3. When the soccer ball leaves the field during a match, a corner kick is performed to restart the game. To perform a successful corner kick, the player must kick the ball at just the right angle, so that it bypasses opponents and lands near teammates. During a practice session for the World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo makes a corner kick at a 42° angle, launching the soccer ball with an initial velocity of 26 m/s. Assuming the ball travels with projectile motion and air resistance is negligible, answer the following questions:

a. At what time does the soccer ball reach its peak height?
b. What is the maximum height reached by the soccer ball?

4. While practicing for the World Cup, Kylian Mbappé kicks the ball from the ground at a 41° angle. As the ball launches with an initial speed of 28.5 m/s, an opponent 54 meters away at the opposite side of the soccer field begins running to get the ball. What is the average speed he must maintain in order to make contact with the ball just before it hits the ground?

File Attachments

	Physics in Soccer: Projectile Motion Problems – Student V	File Size: 81.32 KB
	Physics in Soccer: Projectile Motion Problems – Editable	File Size: 37.64 KB
	Physics in Soccer: Projectile Motion Problems – Answer Key	File Size: 55.11 KB

2022 Science Conferences

After almost 3 years of conference cancellations, it was great to be back to meeting with teachers in person.

Please let us know which PASCO product you enjoyed learning about the most!

Your discount and coupon code will be revealed upon submission of this form.

Here are the draw winners from the October provincial conferences. Thank you to everyone who entered!

ATA-SC (Alberta): Jennifer Wiley

Catalyst (British Columbia): Drew Parkinson

AESTQ (Quebec): Karine Routhier

AST (Nova Scotia): Tanya Smith and Joel MacNeil

OAPT (Ontario): Jonathan Hakvoort

MatchGraph! Software

Download Free MatchGraph!™ Software

MatchGraph software is the most intuitive way to teach motion graphing. Engage your students with a kinesthetic experience that teaches graphing centered on motion. In MatchGraph, students attempt to match one of the nine provided graphs and are given a score showing how accurately they match their chosen curve. This activity gives them a deeper understanding of interpreting graphs as they see their own position and velocity graphed in real time.

When students use a PASCO Motion Sensor, they can create graphs of their own motion that they can then analyze. When they use a Smart Cart, students view real-time graphs of a cart they move.

MatchGraph is great for teaching:

Fundamental graphing skills
Basic concepts of position and velocity
The concept of slope
What it means when the slope is zero
How position and velocity graphs relate to each other

MatchGraph is compatible with:

PASCO Wireless Motion Sensor
PASCO Wireless Smart Cart
PASPORT Motion Sensor with a PASCO Interface
ScienceWorkshop Motion Sensor with a PASCO Interface

Motion Sensor and Tablet with MatchGraph

MatchGraph Screens

MatchGraph Screenshot

When students see their motion graphed in real time, it helps them quickly internalize and understand concepts around motion graphs.

MatchGraph Screenshot

The relationships between position, velocity, and acceleration are easier to understand when presented visually and connected to motion.

The MatchGraph Toolbar

MatchGraph has an intuitive user interface that allows teachers and students to simply set up and begin matching immediately. You can add students, view high scores, export data, and more with a simple click or touch.

Toggle Between Position and Velocity

Students can choose from nine different position profiles and their derivative velocity curves. MatchGraph also allows students to collect position and velocity data freely, without using a MatchGraph profile.

Turn science learning into a class activity.

MatchGraph creates a fun and competitive way to let students experience the concepts of motion graphing as well as rate of change. Enter student names and keep track of individual scores for each curve. High scores are tracked for each individual MatchGraph profile.

Connecting Ontario’s New Science Curriculum to PASCO’s STEM Sense Products

To some degree, all technology today includes coding. With coding becoming more relevant than ever, Ontario science courses are now integrating coding into the curriculum.

The Ontario Grade 9 science curriculum states:

Coding environments allow for rapid ideating, prototyping, testing, and evaluating as students refine and debug their projects.

One way students can apply these skills is through robotics. The PASCObot is a fun way to teach students about data, robotics, programming, and sense and control. Using Blockly coding, students can make the PASCObot move, navigate and avoid objects, follow a line or path, and many more. The PASCObot encourages students to problem solve and overcome challenges to achieve a goal.

In the Ontario Grade 9 science course, a key goal is:

Providing students with the skills and knowledge required to apply engineering design processes to help find solutions to complex problems.

The //control.Node Sense & Control Kit includes materials and instructions for six projects that use elements of the engineering design process to turn on lights, run a cooling fan, open doors, launch rubber bands, and more. The activities allow students to gain skills in designing, building, and problem-solving by writing and executing code.

I had the opportunity of trying two of the projects associated with the kit:

In the Engineering a Winch activity, students engineer a device that can lift and place down an object. In this activity, you start by putting together a pulley device using a winch wheel and a high-speed stepper motor. By measuring the circumference of the wheel, you can calculate the number of rotations required to move the string and magnet a certain distance to pick up a paperclip. Using Blockly coding, students have to find a way to program the wheel to rotate according to the measurements taken.

The Nightlight activity teaches students how coding with loops and conditions can be used in a real-life setting. By covering the light sensor on the //code.Node, students can analyze how brightness is affected by looking at the live data on SPARKvue. This provides students with data that they can interpret to create code that will turn the light bulb on when brightness is below a certain percentage.

A key change in the biology portion of the Grade 9 science curriculum is:

Students will have an opportunity to learn about the many factors that contribute to ecosystem sustainability, including soil health, air and water quality, biodiversity, and succession.

The Greenhouse Sense & Control Kit provides experiments that encourage students to gain hands-on experience in each of these topics. Students can design, build, program, and study their very own greenhouse.

In our experience with the Greenhouse Sense & Control Kit, we decided to design an environment for a Ring of Fire Pepper Plant. We had to research conditions that would be essential for the plant to grow. This included factors such as relative humidity, temperature, soil moisture, hours of sunlight, and how much water it needs each week. The Greenhouse Sense & Control kit provides the materials for students to design the greenhouse for the plants’ needs. Through code, you can program a fan, grow light, and irrigation system to provide the optimal conditions for your plant. This teaches students how changes due to soil, water, air, and temperature in an ecosystem can affect a plant’s growth in good and bad ways. The activities provided by this kit allow students to learn about ecosystem sustainability firsthand and in real-time.

PASCO Wins Two Best of STEM Awards

Originally posted on pasco.com July 21, 2022.

Educators chose the PASCO Meter Stick Torque Set as the 2022 winner for Best of STEM: Physics and PASCO’s STEM Sense & Control Kits for Best of STEM: Engineering.

We are thrilled to share that the PASCO Meter Stick Torque Set and STEM Sense & Control Kits have been named winners of the 2022 Educators Pick Best of STEM^™ Awards! This year’s competition was stiff, and it is an honor to have our innovations recognized by the program’s distinguished educator judges. Check out highlights from their reviews below!

PASCO has reinvented the Meter Stick Torque Kit into a core piece of equipment in the STEM toolkit. The Meter Stick Torque Set is integrated with all of PASCO’s other products (and others by other manufacturers), and has various online experiments, videos, and teacher resources, so that it can easily be incorporated into lesson plans.

– Judge, Educators Pick Best of STEM Awards

PASCO’s STEM Sense & Control connects students to the science and engineering of tomorrow. Smart homes are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, and through the use of the STEM Sense & Control [line], students can learn by designing their own engineering products. It’s real-world learning for today’s connected students.

– Judge, Educators Pick Best of STEM Awards

Getting Started With The Greenhouse Sense and Control Kit

For the past week, Mia and I have been working on a new project involving a pepper plant named Pete, the SPARKvue software, and PASCO’s new Greenhouse Sense and Control Kit. Pete is a Ring of Fire pepper plant which thrives in temperatures between 26-29 degrees Celsius and a relative humidity of around 70%. We knew that we had to set up Pete’s optimal conditions if we wanted him to grow and produce any peppers, so Mia and I immediately got to work on it. We started by setting up the greenhouse itself, including the fan and grow light accessories, followed by the greenhouse sensor which includes a soil moisture probe and the temperature, humidity, and light sensing pc board. Once we connected the //control.Node to our laptop we were able to begin the programming process. Using the information available on the PASCO website, we were able to create simple code designed to regulate the temperature and relative humidity by activating the fan accessory anytime the relative humidity level went over 75% and deactivating the fan accessory once the level drops back down to 70%. This would keep the relative humidity within the desired 70-75% window. We also found that this would keep the temperature of the greenhouse between 25-26 degrees Celsius, ensuring that ideal conditions for the Ring of Fire pepper were met.

The Greenhouse Sense and Control kit contained a wide variety of equipment which allowed us to monitor the temperature and relative humidity inside the Eco Chamber. The values collected during this process helped us to create the code we needed on SPARKvue to regulate Pete’s environment easily. This code was uploaded to the //control.Node so that it would run throughout the off-hours without any constant monitoring, which was very convenient for Mia and myself, and ensured that Pete would be well taken care of in our absence.

Pete was watered manually about 3 times throughout the work week to keep him hydrated and to regulate the moisture levels of the soil, and we made sure to give him multiple hours under the grow light each day, and before long we noticed that small flower bulbs began to appear. This week, we will be focusing on maintaining the optimal environment for Pete’s success so that he continues to grow and flower. We also want to experiment more with the USB water pump, and aim to create a watering or drip irrigation system within the greenhouse!

As a future environmental engineer, I’ve truly enjoyed working with the Greenhouse Sense and Control Kit. Being able to grow a plant right here in the office has been a really great opportunity, and it’s allowed me to apply the experience gathered from my studies of soil and water to a really interesting project, as well as expand my knowledge!

Assumption College Visit

Yesterday we visited Department Head David Page and the Science Department at Assumption College School in Brantford, Ontario.

We demonstrated a variety of PASCO products including the newest additions, the Greenhouse Sense and Control Kit and PASCObot as well as PASCO classics including the Basic Optics System, and award-winning Smart Cart.

It was great to be back in person interacting with teachers! We discussed ways to integrate PASCO products into the classroom to create a fun, educational, and hands-on environment for students.

We were very impressed with Assumption College’s extensive PASCO collection and how they are using multi-generations of PASCO in tandem for their labs.

Thank you to David Page for arranging the visit and we are looking forward to visiting more schools in the future!

Working with TecQuipment’s Wind Turbine Dynamics Apparatus

Last Friday, I was given the opportunity to take a trip to Centennial College alongside a colleague of mine to help a group of professors with the assembly of the TecQuipment AE1005V Wind Turbine Dynamics Apparatus. The apparatus is comprised of a bell shaped mouth and honeycomb to reduce turbulent airflow, a silencer to reduce excessive noise, an anemometer to record wind speed, and a digital display for pitch, yaw, fan speed, and turbine speed, all of which are adjustable. We arrived at the campus early in the morning, where we met with our contact at the school. He led us through the college into the machine shop and we began to assemble the AE1005V.

The assembly process was very simple and easy to follow from the provided instructions. Once the silencer is removed from its stowed position and fastened to the back of the apparatus, we connected the Control Cabinet to a power supply and opened the sliding door to attach the fins to the turbine. We then connected the apparatus to a laptop which was running the Versatile Data Acquisition System, or VDAS, which automatically collects data, calculates experiment parameters, and allows the user to create graphs and tables for the collected data. Once the fins were secured and the security door was closed and locked, we began to experiment with the fan speed, pitch, turbine speed, and anemometer. This data was also digitally displayed on the Control Cabinet.

Now that the apparatus was fully set up, we began to work through the first experiment to determine the influence of pitch angles and turbine speed on the coefficient of performance and power generated. As a future environmental engineer hoping to specialize in air hydrology, I was really grateful to be able to have a hands on experience with this kind of equipment. The option to switch out the included turbine fins for ones that have been 3D printed by students made the AE1005V even more interesting to use, with students being able to create and test different fin designs to determine optimal performance, and this really piqued my interest.

Eventually, I would like to spend more time using and learning about the AE1005V Wind Turbine Dynamics Apparatus, and other technology like it, and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to speak with the professors about what they plan to use theirs for throughout the upcoming fall semester.