Over the past two years, the Reed Physics Department has been laying plans to update its introductory course by introducing some "new-technology" experiments into the Physics 100 instructional laboratory. Of special interest has been the VideoPoint system, which allows students to digitize video images that they have taken of physical phenomena, then analyze those images in light of physical theories.

In order to explore the usefulness and capabilities of the VideoPoint system for our purposes, we used funds from the Murdock Technology Innovation grant to purchase a Sony DCR-TRV900 digital video camera, tripod and VideoPoint software in June 2001. Using this system over the course of summer 2001, we found the necessary conditions for acquiring images of sufficient quality for analysis by the VideoPoint software. In particular, we found that the camera's shutter speed must be set to 1/250 second or faster, that normal room lighting provides sufficient illumination at these shutter speeds and that only a Firewire connection streaming digital video was fast enough to avoid "missing frames" during the data acquisition process. The VideoPoint software itself we found to be ideally suited for our envisioned laboratory purposes. It can be easily used after a brief training period and provides several powerful methods for analyzing objects in motion. We have developed ideas for several video-based exercises involving interesting and insightful investigations of introductory physics concepts including motion in a gravitational field and conservation laws.

After familiarizing ourselves with the Sony DCR-TRV900 video camera and VideoPoint software, we submitted a grant to the Keck Foundation in Fall 2001, requesting 16 video camera set-ups for the Physics 100 laboratory development project. From our work with the DCR-TRV900 camera, we knew the important subset of available features that are necessary for our work, allowing us to request digital video camera that are about half the cost of the DCR-TRV900. In January 2002, we were informed by the Keck Foundation that our proposal was funded and so the new Physics 100 lab curriculum will be developed over the next two summers (2002 and 2003). We are most appreciative for the support of the Murdock Technology Initiative grant, which allowed us to become familiar with the capability of video-based introductory physics lab experimentation, and facilitated informed decisions on equipping our new instructional laboratory.