[Edu-sig] Python control of a PC interfacing equipment

[Arthur]

> Hello,
> 
> The Phoenix project aims to bring low cost
> PC based experimental Physics education
> to the classroom - read about it here:
> 
> http://linuxgazette.net/111/pramode.html
> 
> Regards,
> Pramode

Yeah for the Phoenix project.

There is actual evidence that this kind of approach to science education
works well. Of course the extent to which actual evidence means much is
problematic - as we are in the realm of education, and technology, after
all.  

Low cost certainly sounds like a nice idea.  And real scientists are
themselves always working within budgetary constraints. And the history of
science is all about the rigging up of apparatus from available materials to
test hypotheses. And like just about everything else in life, one learns
science best by doing it. Not virtually, but actually. 

I like the fact it grows out of efforts of someone doing work at a Nuclear
Science Center. One, because it is the effort of a working scientist.
Secondly, because the state of the art of scientific apparatus -
particularly in this kind of field - is so advanced (and expensive) that it
would be easy to despair that this kind of approach could give students a
shot at doing science. A working scientist is concluding otherwise here, and
doing something about it.  

The virtual 3d laboratory with avatars scurrying about in white smocks is
another approach, of course.

I guess until the evidence is in -  I'm being kind, because the evidence is
in and its just a matter of who wants to look at it - its just a matter of
taste. 

Art