GCSE and A-level physics practicals with a smartphone
Where a phone and the free FizziQ app fit in the UK practical curriculum, and where they do not.
A modern phone carries an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer, a microphone, a light sensor, a barometer and a camera. With FizziQ, each becomes a logging instrument with graphs and CSV export, and the experiment notebook keeps the write-up. This page lists the practicals where that helps. It does not claim that a phone replaces the apparatus named in a specification: for a required practical, the exam board's method stays the reference, and the phone is an additional or alternative method that students can compare with it. FizziQ is free, needs no account and works on iOS and Android; Chromebooks use FizziQ Web.
GCSE physics (AQA, Edexcel, OCR)
| Practical | What the phone brings | FizziQ activities |
|---|---|---|
| Force and extension of a spring (Hooke's law) | Static method with masses as required; FizziQ adds the dynamic method: hang the phone, record the oscillation, get k from the period. | Spring constant with a smartphone accelerometer |
| Acceleration, force and mass (F = ma) | The phone on a trolley records acceleration directly, no light gates needed. | Atwood machine · How a smartphone accelerometer measures motion |
| Waves: ripple tank and waves on a string | Frequency and wavelength on FizziQ Web's lake simulation; standing waves in a tube with the spectrum analyzer. | Wave speed, wavelength and frequency · Tube resonance |
| Specific heat capacity and thermal insulation | Temperature logging with FizziQ Connect probes replaces the thermometer readings. | Thermal convection in water · Latent heat of vaporization |
| Light: reflection, refraction and intensity | The phone's lux meter measures intensity against distance and through absorbing sheets. | Inverse square law · Beer-Lambert law |
| Speed of sound (common class practical) | Two phones with acoustic stopwatches, or one phone with a resonance tube. | Speed of sound with two smartphones · Test tube resonance |
| Pendulum and period (common class practical) | Period against length and amplitude, with the acoustic stopwatch or the accelerometer. | Pendulum period and isochronism |
A-level physics
| Practical | What the phone brings | FizziQ activities |
|---|---|---|
| Determination of g by free fall | Drop the phone onto a cushion: the accelerometer trace gives the fall time; or track a thrown ball on video. | Free fall: measure g · Measuring g by video analysis · Weightlessness in free fall |
| Simple harmonic motion: mass-spring and pendulum | The phone is the oscillating mass; T² against m or L from the notebook graphs. | Spring constant · Pendulum period · Mass-spring oscillator simulation |
| Stationary waves and resonance | Resonance in a tube or a bottle with white noise and the spectrum analyzer. | Tube resonance · Helmholtz resonance · Acoustic beats |
| Doppler effect | Frequency shift of a passing vehicle or of a swinging phone, read on the spectrum analyzer. | Doppler effect · Doppler effect of a sound pendulum |
| Gas laws: Boyle and Charles | The phone's barometer sealed in a jar, or the FizziQ Web ideal gas simulation. | Ideal gas law with a smartphone barometer · Boyle's law simulation · Gay-Lussac's law: absolute zero |
| Inverse square law | Illuminance against distance with the light sensor (a safe analogue of the gamma source practical). | Inverse square law |
| Magnetic fields: field of a coil | The magnetometer measures B against I for a coil, the Biot-Savart law follows. | Biot-Savart law · Speed with magnetic markers |
| Circular motion | Centripetal acceleration against angular velocity, phone at arm's length or in a salad spinner. | Centripetal acceleration · Salad spinner centrifuge |
| Moments of inertia and rotation | A phone taped to a rolling cylinder records linear and angular acceleration. | Rolling cylinder |
| Uncertainty and data analysis | Standard deviation, histograms and signal-to-noise on real sensor data. | Measurement uncertainty · Accelerometer noise |
Practical skills and the CPAC criteria
The A-level practical endorsement asks students to follow written procedures, use apparatus and techniques correctly, make and record observations, and research and report. Each FizziQ activity has a written protocol, a QR code that opens the right instrument, a notebook for records and graphs, and a printable PDF handout; the experiment creator lets a teacher write a departmental version of a method once and share it with every phone in the class.
Also see: IB Physics IA ideas, FizziQ and NGSS for the US curriculum, and the correspondence with Phyphox experiments.