How do I use this site?
Why should I use this site?
Why can't I find a particular demo?
What do the classification numbers mean?
How was this site made?
What if I have questions or comments?
Welcome to the Auburn University physics demonstration site. The primary purpose of these pages is to assist the faculty and students of Auburn University in the instruction and learning of physics.
The way this site is setup is simple. From the home page it is possible to go to any major subject and get a listing of different categories within that subject. By choosing one of these categories you can then see a list of the demonstrations within that category. Choose a demonstration and you will be taken to a page that shows a picture of the demonstration, the equipment you will need to perform the demonstration, relevant formulae, and other information such as setup time and safety concerns. Clicking on a picture will download a larger JPEG image.
While I certainly hope this site transcends its primary purpose, I realize that the people who will find it most useful are the faculty and students of Auburn. For the faculty this site will replace the traditional demo catalog and should help with course and classroom planning. Now from the comfort of your own office you can see precisely what demonstrations are available for topics such as linear momentum or capacitance. You can also see how much equipment is required and how long it should take to setup.
I am constantly working to expand the demo resources. If the demonstration has a page and a picture then it is available. Otherwise it may or may not be available. Some additional demonstrations are descibed in the update section of the main menu. Some demonstrations work better than others especially in a large class room. If there is something that you are particularly interested in please contact me and tell me what it is you want. I am always looking for new ideas and will try and get or build anything you might need.
Rather than reinvent the wheel I used a classification scheme developed by PIRA (Physics Instructional Resource Association). The classification scheme breaks demonstrations into the eight main topics which you can link to from the demonstration home page. This classification scheme makes it easy to have a comprehensive list of demonstrations and allows everyone to speak the same language.
For those of you interested in making your own web pages I thought I would throw in this little section and tell you how this page was made. The primary software used for the images was Fractal Painter 5.0, Adobe PhotoShop 3.0-5.5, Macromedia Freehand 5.0-8.0, and 3D Studio r4. A simple text editor was used for the html documents and all the files are stored on a Sun mainframe server.
The individual images of all the demonstration equipment were taken using
both a Kodak DC50 and DC260 digital science camera. Changes were made using Olympus and Nikon cameras. A digital camera certainly
makes this part of this project much easier. No film costs, no scanning,
and I can change or add pictures at any time. The digital images are imported
into PhotoShop, manipulated, and exported as JPEG images so that the file
size remained small and the image quality would be maximized for downloading.
This site was originally designed by James Clark. It was revised by William
Maddox in the Summer of 2002 and Summer of 2004. If you have any questions
dealing with the listed physics demonstrations please send an email to maddox@physics.auburn.edu.
Copyright ©1996, James Clark