BLE Sensors for physics lessons

• Goal
• Microcontroller and Sensors
  • Force Sensor
  • ToF Distance-Sensor
  • Light Gate
  • Magnetometer
  • DC Multimeter
  • Barometer

Goal

Easy to use and affordable sensor boxes for digital data acquisition are suitable for use in physics lessons by students or for teacher demonstrations.

Each box can be assembled for less than 20 €.

Comments and requests for changes to both the 3D files and the Arduino code are welcome.

Microcontroller and Sensors

All boxes are equipped with an ESP32, enabling them to communicate via BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) or a serial connection.

I use the Wemos Lolin32Lite development board because of its availability, the battery connector and the low price.

Most sensors use the I2C interface to communicate with the ESP32.

Force Sensor

Sensor:

Load Cell and HX711 amplifier

ToF Distance-Sensor

Sensor:

VL53L0X

or

VL53L1X

Light Gate

Sensor:

Adafruit Break Beam Sensor

or (cheaper)

modified lightgate/speed-sensor with LM393

Magnetometer

Sensor:

LIS2MDL

or

MLX90393

or

(Gy-271) low range

DC Multimeter

Sensor:

INA219

and (optional)

ADS1115

Example Videos:

Diode characteristic https://youtu.be/DQ5L0hsJfBA

Resistor characteristic https://youtu.be/PSxBtcULFwU

Charge and Discharge of a capacitor https://youtube.com/shorts/HkM0g7PQ94s?feature=share

Barometer

BMP180 Barometer and Thermometer module.