Measuring Gravity Using the micro:bit

Let's do an experiment to measure the force of gravity using the micro:bit. If I turn the micro:bit into a pendulum, it will swing backwards and forwards, and I can measure how long it takes to swing back and forth (the period of oscillation) and therefore work out the force of the Earth on the pendulum.

The micro:bit times the experiment in milliseconds (so that we can get good precision in the answer), and uses light detection to tell when it is swinging back and forth: I'm using a torch/flashlight to light up the micro:bit, so that it knows it has reached the bottom of the swing each time.

You can find my micro:bit code for the pendulum at:

https://makecode.microbit.org/_9ggdqw0T88k2 (on the makecode site)

https://github.com/magiccow/microbit-gravity (on my github page)

It's written using the Microsoft Blocks editor so that you can easily see the structure, and make changes if you want to.

The micro:bit has its own accelerometer on board, so you could probably tell where it is on the swing using that (instead of the torch method I used). I tried this, but it seemed to take too much time to read the accelerometer: let me know if you have more success with this!

You can see some information about the pendulum formula I used here:

http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/pendulum_equations.htm#.WIXoQxuLRQI