Bluetooth sensors in phyphox with Arduino and MicroPython -- Paving the way from an idea to an experiment for teachers and learners

Abstract

In order to extend the available sensors of smartphone experiments with cheap microcontroller-based external sensors, the smartphone experimentation app "phyphox" has been extended with a generic Bluetooth Low Energy interface. Since its application requires an in-depth understanding of the underlying technologies, the direct use of that interface for educational purposes is limited. To avoid this difficulty, the functionality was encapsulated into an Arduino and MicroPython library. With these, also educators and learners with only rudimentary programming knowledge can integrate an app-based interface into microcontroller projects with only few lines of code. This opens a wide range of new learning opportunities, which are described exemplarily.