Student Projects
Introduction
Measuring the speed of any object can be simply obtained by timing how long it takes the object to move over a known distance. In this project, the myDAQ is used, along with LabVIEW to automate this process. The time is takes for a toy car to traverse a known distance is measured by the myDAQ’s onboard counter as the time between two digital pulses generated by a laser driven light gate.
Once you can measure the speed of an object you can test a number of physical principles. In this project, the car’s speed can be estimated by releasing it from a known height and using the law of conservation of energy.
Check out the source code and detailed guide in the attached documents.
I hope you like it, I certainly had fun making it. Let me know if you have any questions.
Nick Clark NIUK AE Intern
Video
Materials Used
- Small Car
- Car Track
- Laser Pointer x2
- LDR x2
- Small Pen Tube
- LED
- 1K Resistor x2
- 4093 Schmitt Nand
- myDAQ
- myProtoBoard
- LabVIEW
Software
Here you can see the front panel and block diagram of the LabVIEW application. It uses simple DAQmx programming for the majority of the application. The more complex UI interation is handled in an XControl.
