Video Analysis: The Next Physics Laboratory?

We summarize recent explorations within the USMA Department of Physics with the use of a commercial video analysis program, LoggerPro, to enhance the traditional mechanics lab and the interactive lecture curriculum in the calculus-based Newtonian Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism courses at the United States Military Academy.We put forward several significant pedagogical advantages for using video analysis software.We hypothesize that these advantages include greater student-teacher interaction, enhanced visualization of mechanical phenomenon, and the ability to effortlessly analyze instructor demonstrations.When applied to the curriculum of a traditional laboratory program, these advantages should translate into an exportable, flexible, and independent platform.In effect becoming a cyber laboratory that can travel with the student, requiring only a laptop computer, a digital video camera, and a student's initiative to operate.By exporting the analysis of mechanical phenomena to the student's domain, we attempt to bridge the most important gap in science education: connecting the classroom to the dorm room, while encouraging student's to analyze everyday phenomena that might otherwise go unexplored.Applications are endless, and limited only by the instructor's (or the student's!)imagination.We highlight three applications as case studies of video analysis within our laboratory program.These case studies include a vertical loop in a popular roller coaster, a HMMWV (High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle) frontal crash test, and two charged hanging pith balls in electrostatic equilibrium.We summarize instructor and student survey data in an attempt to address the efficacy of video analysis as observed through the execution of these three case studies.