The PocketLab – Wireless sensor for STEM education(thepocketlab.com)

The PocketLab – Wireless sensor for STEM education

http://thepocketlab.com/index.html

5 comments

This is really cool. With the phone connection, it kinda reminds me of the extra probe on Medical Tricorders (from Star Trek), where that device had additional sensors, and was smaller and easier to move around a patient's body.

Likewise, this instrument can be placed in locations where a smartphone would be difficult to position and read. Or it can be a small distance away - put the sensor outside while you remain comfortably indoors. Put the sensor inside a centrifuge while you remain relatively stationary. Put the sensor inside a model rocket while you remain on the ground.

I can't wait to see these put on RC cars and drones and RC blimps.

gh02t11 anni fa

Hah, this is pretty neat. I've been working on a hobby project to build something very similar myself using an ESP8266 + sensors crammed into a hollowed out wall wart. This sort of project is really fun, I recommend trying it.

As a product, the PocketLab looks like it provides a jump start into playing with sensor networks. I would have loved to have something like this as a kid in school. The price seems a bit steep considering the specs on the guts, but I imagine part of this is the software + the fact that this is an early adopter preview. If it's rugged enough to last and the software easy to use then this would certainly be worthwhile for educators.

staticvar11 anni fa

It looks like the TI sensortag in a different case and three times as expensive.

staticvar11 anni fa

Here's a link to the TI sensor tag for $29.

http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2650stk

I wonder what the unique selling proposition of this new product is. Curriculum around environmental monitoring is definitely a win! If these folks do a good job with that then that might be a justification for educators to pay more if they can see it as a contribution to curriculum development.

layman11 anni fa

You may deem me off-topic, but I hate any page that has auto-play set, that too with volume! I visited your page in Firefox with NoScript and it was playing audio right away even without the video loading. Sorry, that's bad design!

zardo11 anni fa

That looks like a cool product. I think a school teacher/curriculum principal would be more successful in getting a bulk purchase made with lesson plans available(I would focus on commoncore curriculum to hit the widest audience).