Year 8 have learned that computers take input from sensors as well as keyboards. The teacher has checked in advance that the school tablets have all three sensors, since phyphox lists only the ones a device has. Pairs open phyphox on a tablet and work through four questions, each about a feature they use every day: how does the screen know to rotate, how does a map know which way you face, how does a step counter count, and how could a phone tell which floor you are on. For each one they open a sensor in phyphox, change one thing at a time, such as tilting the tablet slowly through 90 degrees or turning on the spot away from the metal radiators, and sketch the graph that results. For the last question pairs carry the tablet up one flight of stairs, with staff on the landing, and watch the air pressure reading fall. Each pair finishes with a table matching each feature to a sensor, with the graph that proves it.
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.