The World Pendulum Alliance is a project that seeks to build a network of remote experiments for education and is working with pendulums arranged in different parts of the world to collect data on the acceleration of gravity at different latitudes and altitudes. The project initially involves institutions from Europe and Latin America and is partially funded by EACEA's Erasmus+ for Capacity building (higher education) program. One of the main contributions sought is to offer a scalable and flexible alternative to reduce the effect of the lack of access to practical experimentation in schools, not through simulations, but through the execution of real experiments, controlled at a distance. In this work we show data collected from first impressions collected among a small number of students from higher and basic education institutions in Brazil who accessed the pendulums in different institutions. The evaluations obtained are encouraging but point out some care that we must take to improve this project.

World Pendulum Alliance: student's first impressions in Brazil

In this paper, we calculate the gravitational acceleration by using simple pendulums within the designated World Pendulum Alliance: a network constituted by fourteen institutions in eight countries, each provided by a pendulum that can be accessed remotely via the Internet. As a pedagogical option for remote laboratory experiences, we show how to access them and measure the pendulum’s period for N oscillations. We discuss the role of the repetitions and samples to minimize the experimental uncertainty, and by using the averaged value of the period, we compute the gravitational acceleration locally. Also, we present the corrections due to the moment of inertia of the system. Finally, by taking into account the geographical location of each pendulum, we report gravity’s dependence on latitude, longitude, and altitude by discussing the implications on the Earth’s shape. We hope this tool will be helpful for introductory and university physics courses due to its remote access features and its relation to fundamental concepts.

Computing the gravitational acceleration withing the World Pendulum Alliance: an application of the remote laboratory methodology implemented by UNAD

The World Pendulum Alliance is an educational project financed by the European Community (EACEA) that aims at establishing a net of remote access standard pendulums scattered throughout Europe and Latin America, mounted in co-participating Universities, to allow students to collect data to measure the acceleration of gravity in different latitudes and altitudes, and check the results against the global geophysical model. In small angle regimes pendulums are expected to carry harmonic oscillations, however the acceleration dependence on the sine of the oscillation angle induces a slight amplitude dependence of the period of oscillation. In this work we investigate the period dependence on the motion amplitude, which is close to its precision, to investigate the performance of this equipment. Despite operating within the overall uncertainties of the instrument, this procedure revealed a systematic deviation on several pendulums. Possible electronic and mechanical sources are investigated and new ways to improve the overall pendulum performance in newer versions are discussed. Resumen- La World Pendulum Alliance es un proyecto educativo financiado por la Comunidad Europea (EACEA) que tiene como objetivo establecer una red de pendulos estandar de acceso remoto repartidos por Europa y America Latina, montados en universidades coparticipantes, para permitir a los estudiantes recopilar datos para medir la aceleración de la gravedad en diferentes latitudes y altitudes, y comparar los resultados con el modelo geofísico global. En regímenes de ángulo pequeño, se espera que los péndulos lleven oscilaciones armónlcas, sin embargo, la dependencia de la aceleración en el seno del ángulo de oscilación induce una ligera dependencia de la amplitud del período de oscilaclón. En este trabajo investigamos la dependencia del período de la amplitud de movimiento, que está cerca de su precisión, para investigar el rendimiento de este equipo. A pesar de operar dentro de las incertidumbres generales del instrumento, este procedimiento reveló una desviacióu sistemática en varios péndulos. Se investigan posibles fuentes elcctrónlcas y mecánlcas y se analizan nuevas formas de mejorar el rendimiento general del péndulo en versiones más nuevas. 

World Pendulum Alliance: an apparatus performance analysis

The World Pendulum Alliance is an educational project financed by the European Community (EACEA) that aims at establishing a net of remote access standard pendulums scattered throughout Europe and Latin America, mounted in co-participating Universities, to allow students to collect data to measure the acceleration of gravity in different latitudes and altitudes, and check the results against the global geophysical model. In small angle regimes pendulums are expected to carry harmonic oscillations, however the acceleration dependence on the sine of the oscillation angle induces a slight amplitude dependence of the period of oscillation. In this work we investigate the period dependence on the motion amplitude, which is close to its precision, to investigate the performance of this equipment. Despite operating within the overall uncertainties of the instrument, this procedure revealed a systematic deviation on several pendulums. Possible electronic and mechanical sources are investigated and new ways to improve the overall pendulum performance in newer versions are discussed. Resumen- La World Pendulum Alliance es un proyecto educativo financiado por la Comunidad Europea (EACEA) que tiene como objetivo establecer una red de pendulos estandar de acceso remoto repartidos por Europa y America Latina, montados en universidades coparticipantes, para permitir a los estudiantes recopilar datos para medir la aceleración de la gravedad en diferentes latitudes y altitudes, y comparar los resultados con el modelo geofísico global. En regímenes de ángulo pequeño, se espera que los péndulos lleven oscilaciones armónlcas, sin embargo, la dependencia de la aceleración en el seno del ángulo de oscilación induce una ligera dependencia de la amplitud del período de oscilaclón. En este trabajo investigamos la dependencia del período de la amplitud de movimiento, que está cerca de su precisión, para investigar el rendimiento de este equipo. A pesar de operar dentro de las incertidumbres generales del instrumento, este procedimiento reveló una desviacióu sistemática en varios péndulos. Se investigan posibles fuentes elcctrónlcas y mecánlcas y se analizan nuevas formas de mejorar el rendimiento general del péndulo en versiones más nuevas.

The teaching of physics in virtual and distance higher education has always presented challenges due to the high rate of non-approval (>30%) and dropout rates (>10%). Information and communication technologies have allowed the development and creation of digital resources that allow students to be given other types of tools that improve the teaching-learning process. As a consequence, remote and virtual laboratories have gained importance as a complement in the teaching of concepts and skills in experimentation. In the same way, the digital spaces created based on Inquiry Learning have led students to have a greater understanding of concepts. This paper presents the result of the pedagogical implementation and creation path of an inquiry-based learning space (ILS) in Go- Lab. The educational tool was applied in the General Physics course offered to distance in engineering students of the Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia within the framework of the World Pendulum Alliance (WP@ELAB) project. The results show that of the 345 students who made use of the resource, 234 approved the activity, which implies 68% of the sample. In addition, the qualitative analyzes of the students' appreciation of the use of technology in science still show gaps in terms of lack of knowledge in technology and internet coverage.

Construction and implementation of a Go-Lab inquiry learning space for teaching Energy Conservation in engineering and technology programs in General Physics Course

Pendulum motion as a prolific experimental scenario has been used by physics teachers and researchers at least since the 17th century. The variability of pendulum models allows the study of several mechanical phenomena and gives the opportunity to validate distinct mathematical features of the dynamical and kinematic event. These experimental setups could be used remotely, in a way it could teach physics to students in the pre-university and university level, regardless budget limitations of the particular institution accessing the experiment. The World Pendulum Alliance experimental network as a gravity mapper, presents a strong basis to address students in a non-conventional way, empowering them inside an inquiry learning space.

Pendulum as an Educational Remote Experiment

Some experiments related to Earth’s geophysical characteristics need a globally distributed data acquisition, especially those depending on geographic factors such as latitude. The World Pendulum Alliance is a federated initiative of several universities to create a network of "latitude providers" to allow the mapping of local gravity across the globe. In parallel, a dissemination project encompasses training initiatives to educate local agents in view of physics teaching. The World Pendulum experiment is already in production at e-lab, in Instituto Superior Tecnico – Universidade de Lisboa, and the reproduction of 20 primary experiments, located at partner universities, and 120 secondary experiments, to be deployed by partner universities, is foreseen in the next two years.

Orlando Allard

Papers

Pendulum as an Educational Remote Experiment

World Pendulum Alliance