Australia's Science Forum

Our EasySense dataloggers are getting old; the Data Harvest software was originally supplied on floppy disks. The software can be downloaded (from Serrata website) but I don't have 'administrator' status. The ITs downloaded succesfully on my Prep Room computer, but it doesn't seem to work on the teachers' lap-tops (we all running Vista). Anyone else had this problem?
HT wants to upgrade our gear, and I want to try something other than EasySense. What's Ezilog like, they supposed to accept other sensors (inc. Data Harvest) can anyone reccommend (or another system), and any problems with the software?

ta, Xe

I don't know if this is helpful as we haven't got them yet but we are upgrading to the Vernier dataloggers. As of next year the students arrive at school with their netbooks. Our HOD is looking at Software and sensors that are compatible with them and found a range of sensors and interfaces that will work. Maybe this might be an option.
Rosemary

I must not be thinking clearly at the moment. The DER netbooks given to yr 9 last year can not have any new software installed on them unless the DET issue an update for every netbook in the state. So collecting Science data with a netbook supplied by the DET is not possible at present but it maybe possible in the future. I hope this helps. You can however use it on ordinary laptops.

It is such a big expense to replace dataloggers and sensors that it is not something to rush into. good luck
Rosemary

When I was at CONASTA last year there was a stand that had a demo model of a data logging system that ran off excel and all the probes/sensors just had USB connections to plug straight into a computer. I don't know if they have been released yet. Do a search for Data Loggers on here because last year there was some discussion about who liked what features of the different companies/loggers so if you do decide to go ahead and change everything you will have some valuable opinions on the different ones. Sorry I can't help you with the software for the current one you have. We use Xplorer GLX from Pascoe.

We've gradually bought sets of Tain dataloggers & various probes/sensors over the last couple of years.
They plug straight into a laptop USB & the software is nice & easy to use, plus a whole bunch of pracs are already loaded into the program, so you can do one of those, or you can adapt & customise & save it as a new prac.

http://www.tainlab.com/

We're very happy with the performance of the units, & the support is great.

We've built up to a set of 8 now in the biology department, with temperature probes, heart rate monitors & pH probes.

Cheers,

Kiah