Collaborative smartphone experiments for large audiences with phyphox

TL;DR

This paper introduces methods for large-scale collaborative experiments using smartphones and the phyphox app, enabling real-time data collection from large audiences in educational and global science contexts.

Contribution

It presents new network interfaces and data collection methods for phyphox, facilitating large audience participation in experiments both locally and remotely.

Findings

Successful implementation with 350 students in a lecture hall

Global experiment to measure Earth's axial tilt

Real-time data collection from large audiences

Abstract

We present methods to implement collaborative experimentation with smartphone sensors for larger audiences as typically found at Universities. These methods are based on the app "phyphox", which is being developed by the authors, and encompass simple data collection via web forms as well as a new network interface for "phyphox", allowing to collect real-time experiment data from an audience on-site or easy data submission for remote participants. Examples are given with practical considerations derived from first implementations of this method in a lecture hall with 350 undergraduate students as well as a global experiment to determine the Earth's axial tilt with smartphones.