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Re: [Phys-l] presentation graphics (was whiteboarding ...)



On 4/29/2012 11:15 PM, Leon de Oliveira wrote:
If you wanted to make a document camera, you could always use a webcam and
point it at a blank paper. It might not be enough resolution for printed
text but for graph sketching and diagramming it should work out fairly
well. They also work out much cheaper than a full blown document camera. It
depends on your use.

I have a Smart board in my room. I recently picked up a $15 webcam and
I've been using it for demos. The resolution doesn't knock anyone's
socks off, but it's good enough for a class to be able to see things
like the position of the indicator on a spring scale or the reading on a
multimeter. Most recently, when I used 110V AC to explode a single
strand from a stranded wire to show how a fuse works, the resolution on
the webcam was good enough to clearly show the strand of wire before I
applied the current. (The flash happened quickly enough that the
software's exposure correction wasn't able to capture anything useful.)

I'm sure the resolution would be good enough to capture large printed
text or a sketch/graph.

--
Jeff Bigler
Lynn English High School, Lynn, MA, USA
"Magic" is what we call Science before we understand it.