My name is Peter Erbland, I am one of three physics teachers at Framingham
High School in Massachusetts. We acquired a digital camera (the Casio EXILIM
Pro EX-F1; full details at http://www.exilim.com/intl/ex_f1/) that allow us
to make HD videos at 60 frames per second and make lower resolution videos
at 300, 600 and 1200 frames per second. We have already used this to
recreate higher resolution videos for our standard lab videos (free fall,
projectile motion, conservation of energy, momentum). We have made
high-speed videos to show inertia and we plan to use it to show the motion
of a speaker vibrating at a single frequency and a guitar string vibrating
at different frequencies. But I feel we have not been able to utilize the
high-speed aspect as well as I think we should be able to.
I know that there have been commercial grade high-speed video cameras out
there for years and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience using
high-speed video to make a typically difficult physics concept more readily
accessible. Have you created videos? What concepts have you illustrated? How
did this enhance the students' understanding? Does anyone know of or has
anyone created a repository of good high-speed physic videos that can be
used by video analysis software? YouTube, for example, is loaded with videos
people made at high frame rates, but they are rarely scaled and rarely show
useful physics.
Also, does anyone else have any specific experiences with this particular
camera that would be useful to share? We have found that at 300 frames per
second and higher, the cycling of the fluorescent lights becomes visible and
distracting. We now use either sunlight or halogen lamps to light up the
scenes. We have also found it useful to also have some software (such as
QuickTime Pro) that allows you to rotate the images.
I think as the technology becomes more readily available and accessible,
there will great deal of opportunity for this tool in physics classes.
However, we are still trying to figure out how to best use it.