iOLab

The iOLab - an Illinois PER invention

"What sets scientists apart a little bit is this great desire to just play... I want to enable other people to have this joy of just playing and discovering."
- Mats Selen, iOLab creator

The iOLab is a wireless, battery-powered red box, slightly smaller than a graphing calculator, containing a small computer, a radio chip and a variety of sensors. It links wirelessly to a computer through a USB dongle. The iOLab – for Interactive Online Lab – can measure acceleration, orientation, magnetic fields, electrical signals, frequency spectra, time constants and more. A user could even measure the speed of light merely equipped with the IOLab, a piece of scrap aluminum and a ruler.

The iOLab device is now in use in K-12 educational settings and and the college level, supporting Physics learning in in-person, remote, and hybrid formats. Its portability and flexibility make it an excellent tool to rethink what "physics labs" look like. The Physics department uses iOLab in all their introductory courses, and give Illinois high school teachers access to devices as part of their participation in the IPaSS program.

Read more about Mats Selen and the iOLab in an iSTEM feature and in an article in the Physics Department's Condensate newsletter.
Read more about how the introductory laboratories were transformed with iOLab on the Lab Reform project page.
Read more about the iOLab on the iOLab site.
The iOLab was developed with support by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, The National Science Foundation, and Macmillan Learning.