Research at Home: Using a Smartphone for Data Collection

If you’re short on lab equipment to collect data, look no further than your back pocket for a scientific data collection device.

Some sensors that you can use for data collection are already built into most smartphones. You may need to download an app to use some of them for data collection purposes. If you are under 18, make sure you have permission to download and use an app. Here are some examples of sensors (and what they detect) you may have at your fingertips:

Sensors Built into Most Smartphones

  • Accelerometer (Acceleration)
  • Gyroscope (Rotational motion)
  • Magnetometer/Compass (Magnetic fields)
  • GPS receiver (Location)
  • Microphone (Sound)
  • Camera (Light, Color, Barcode reader)
  • Photometer/Ambient Light Sensor (Light)
  • Stopwatch (Time)
  • Touchscreen (Conductivity or Pressure)

Some Additional Sensors Smartphones Might Include

  • Barometer (Pressure)
  • Thermometer (Temperature – internal or ambient)
  • Humidity Sensor (Amount of water in the air)
  • Fingerprint sensor (Conductivity)
  • Proximity Sensor (Infrared Light)
  • Pedometer (Acceleration)
  • Facial recognition (Light)
  • Heart Rate Monitor (Heartbeats)
  • Geiger Counter (Harmful Radiation)
  • Gravity Sensor (Gravitation)

Things that Apps Can Measure or Identify

  • Types of plants and animals
  • Earthquakes
  • Bird songs
  • Distance traveled or height of an object
  • Brightness of the sky

ISEF Projects that use Smartphones to Collect Data

Check out these projects that use a variety of sensors, or even create their own, to capture data. See more ISEF abstracts by visiting the .

Using the Camera

Using a Combination of Sensors

Create your own Sensor

Articles about Using Smartphones for Data Collection

Science News听补苍诲听Science News for Students are our award-winning publications that cover current advances across all STEM disciplines. We have gathered a collection of articles specifically on Using a Smartphone for Data Collection to further shed light on this topic and provide inspiration for student research projects.

These young researchers take aim at sports

Archery apps, safety equipment and a ball-sorting robot all debut at Broadcom science competition

Building a DIY microscope

You can make a microscope for $10 with some wood, Plexiglas, a drill and your cell phone. Or at least, you can try

Do-it-yourself microscope inventor aims to bring science to the people

Using only a smartphone, a laser pointer and some bits of plastic and wood, Yoshino can build a microscope that can magnify things up to 325 times, all for only $10.

READ THE ARTICLE

Phoning in heartbeats

New device uses a smartphone to collect and email data on heart rhythms

Hack: How to spy on a 3-D printer

Smartphones can figure out what a printer makes by analyzing the noise and energy it emits

READ THE ARTICLE

Weather forecasting is getting a high-speed makeover

Powerful computing, with some help from smartphones, promises to make weather predictions hyperlocal. Want Science News for free for your school? Teachers can sign up for Science News in High Schools.

A new app tracks breathing to detect an opioid overdose

Called Second Chance, the smartphone application could call for help in an emergency. Want Science News for free for your school? Teachers can sign up for Science News in High Schools.

Science News in High Schools Cell Phone Data Collection Activity

Smartphone technologies

In this two-part activity, students will complete a few simple light polarization exercises to model LCD technology and then demonstrate how a smartphone app analyzes and utilizes data to perform a specific function.

A look inside a smartphone

These discussion prompts ask students to describe how various smartphone sensors work, and analyze three graphs related to data gathered by such sensors.