Introducing the PASCO Wireless Smart Gate

Meet the PASCO Wireless Smart Gate, a multi-purpose photogate from PASCO Scientific.

It has dual photogate beams spaced at 1.5 cm to accurately measure speed and velocity. The built-in laser switch (when used with any laser) allows you to time objects too large to fit through the arms of the photogate.

The integrated slot on the arm receives photogate tape that also helps measure the movement of larger and faster objects, like model rockets. The auxiliary port is for adding an additional photogate head or Time-of-Flight Accessory.

Video transcript below:

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Hi, I’m Nicola from LaBLiFe,

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I’m filming today at Keele University.

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And in this video, I’m going to show you
the PASCO Wireless Smart Gate

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and talk through all of its extra features
and explain

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why this is so much more
than just a regular light gate.

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Okay.

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So first off, this is a wireless sensor,

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which means it doesn’t require a cable
to connect to your device or your PC.

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It transmits its data via Bluetooth,
which is really important

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because it means that you get
that really nice, stable signal, doesn’t

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depend on any Wi-Fi and
you can take it outside if you want to.

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Okay.

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So in this one unit, you essentially
get two light gates in one.

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So if we do a little close
up of the unit here,

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you can see the two holes
where the beams are situated.

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So these two beams are situated
at 1.5 centimeters apart.

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And you can have both of them on
if you want to or you can toggle one off.

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It’s completely up to you
and you can decide that in the software.

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Another feature is

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this slot here which accepts PASCO’s
photo gate tape,

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So that’s essentially
a long strip of mylar tape

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which has got block
and transparent sections

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on which un-block and block the beam
as the tape travels through it.

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So that would allow you to plot
velocity profiles if you move an object,

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which is a really nice feature.

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On top of that,
we’ve got this auxiliary port

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at the back here
which accepts stereo phone plugs such

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as this one, which you might recognize

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because it’s connected to PASCO’s
photo-gate head here.

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So to daisy chain

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this to the smart gate.

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All you’ve got to do
is just plug it into the port here.

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And that would give you
two independent gates.

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So this is the kind of setup that you’d
want to be using for the F=MA

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C pack where you want to measure
acceleration between two fixed points.

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It’s also the cheapest way that you can
get to independent light gates from PASCO.

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So I would definitely
recommend this setup.

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And the
last feature that I’m going to show you

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is this one here,
which is the laser receiver.

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So this can accept any laser,
even like a cheap laser pen.

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So what you do to use this is
you’d get your laser, you’d fix it,

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you turn it on to make sure it stays on
and then align it with your receiver here.

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And then that would give you a gate
of a user defined width.

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So you’ve got something too big
to pass through this section here.

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You could use it with the laser switch.

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So if you’ve got like a big pendulum
in your lab, you could use it with that.

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You could take it outside
and do timing of running races

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and you could even measure the speed
of passing cars on the road.

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So that will give you lots of different
options with this one piece of equipment.

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Obviously, if you are using lasers,
please be careful,

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do your regular risk assessments
and follow your standard lab rules.

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So yeah,
thank you very much for joining me today.

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I hope you find this useful and
I look forward to seeing you next time.

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Thanks.

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