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In Coach Software "Authoring" is the ability to create your own experiments including measurement settings, multimedia content, and other settings that will save students time and keep them from being distracted by the computer while they do their work of learning about science. Here we will create an activity that will let us measure and analyze data about the Weather for a 24 hour period.
This weather example is one of medium difficulty because it has some special settings for the graphs. Experiments can be set up that are much simpler than this one, or that are much more complex. As you learn more about the software you will become more comfortable using it. This example took less than ten minutes to set up (even though there are a lot of screen shots and details given in the example).
Coach stores activities inside folders called projects. When the Coach Author software first starts it presents users with the option of opening an existing project or creating a new project. Click on the "New Project" button to create a new project.
A dialog box will then appear that will let you give the project a name.
Fill in the "Title" section and the "Summary Section." If you had an image you wanted to use as a title picture (or splash screen when the project opens) you can insert it by clicking on "select picture"
Activities are the actual individual experiments that a student can perform. After you create a project and click on "ok" then the "open an activity" window appears. Select "New Activity"
A new dialog box will appear that lets you select the interface panel you wish to use for this experiment. In our case we choose CoachLab II.
If you own a different interface panel such as TI-CBL, Vernier LabPro, or CMA ULAB then it should appear on this list when you do this on your own computer.
Another new dialog box will appear that will ask you to set up the options for this activity.
Mainly you are interested in giving the activity a "Name". All other settings can be left as they are. (Click on the "Help" button on this dialog box to view interactive information about each of the settings in this dialog)
Once you have named the activity click on "OK"
Sensors are the heart of any probeware activity. In order to measure and record data you must first tell the computer which sensors you will be using and which inputs on the interface panel that they will be plugged into.
To set up sensors simply right click on an empty square in the sensor pallet (to the left of the picture of your interface panel at the bottom of the CoachLab screen) and choose "Add from Disk" to select a sensor from the many sensor profiles stored on your computer.
A dialog box that has an alphabetical listing of all the sensor profiles on your computer will appear.
We are setting up a weather experiment so choose the Vernier Baro Sensor (or another brand if you do not own the Vernier model). Then click on "OK"
A icon for the sensor will now appear in the first square on the sensor pallet.
Your pointer will turn into a picture of a hand letting you know you can drag and drop this sensor icon.
Drag the icon to input #1 of the interface panel and drop it there.
Now plug the real sensor into the real #1 input on the real interface panel.
Repeat these instructions to add a Relative Humidity Sensor and two Temperature Sensors
Now that the most basic parts of the activity are set up you must choose how to display the data as it is collected. In our example with weather we want to display a graph of relative humidity and air pressure together, a second graph with inside and outside temperature, and a data table that contains all values (including the clock)
To do this click on the "Display Diagram" button.
A dialog box will then appear listing each of the four inputs to the CoachLab panel. If you just wanted to display their data individually you could choose one and click "ok." However in our example we are doing something a little more complicated so click on "New Diagram."
A dialog box that controls the behavior of the diagram will then appear.
Give the new diagram a name (in this case "Air Pressure and Humidity")
Then set up each of the data ranges for this experiment. C1 (the X axis or Horizontal) will be set to the clock, C2 will be set to the Barometer sensor and will occupy the first vertical axis. C3 will be set to the Humidity sensor and will occupy the second vertical axis.
We use two vertical scales in this example because the ranges of the two sensors is very different and what we are interested in is what humidity and air pressure are doing at a specific point in time.
Once you have finished defining the diagrams properties click on "OK." The dialog will then go away and your pointer will turn into an image of a diagram. Drag your pointer over one of the empty window panes of CoachLab and click to drop the graph into that window.
Create a second graph for inside and outside air temperatures. Repeat the procedure that you used to create the previous graph only this time use the same vertical axis for both values, and rename the quantities to "Inside Temperature" and "Outside Temperature."
Next create a data table that contains the data collected from all sensors. This is done in much the same way as creating a diagram. Start off by pressing the "Display Table" button and then choose "New Table" on the dialog that appears.
Give the table the name "Weather Data" and set C1 to Clock, C2 to the Baro Sensor, C3 to the Humidity Sensor, C4 to the Inside Temperature, and C5 to the Outside Temperature.
Once these settings are made then click "OK" and drop the table into the bottom left window pane.
Now that you have defined how your students will view the data that they collect you can all the other elements that make up an activity including instructions, images, video clips, internet links, etc. In this example we are simply going to put instructions on the screen as text.
To create instructions simply click on the "Display Text" button and then create a "New Text" that you title "Instructions", place it in the upper left hand window pane, and then type the instructions in that window.
The last thing you have to define in order to conduct an experiment is the measurement settings. i.e. How long to measure data (Measuring Time), and how often during that time to take measurements (measurement frequency).
To set up these settings click on the "Measurement Settings" button.
In the dialog box that appears change the settings for Measuring Time and Frequency.
Change Measuring Time to 24 hours (since we wish to record long term data about the weather)
Change the measuring frequency to 60 points "per hour." In this experiment we don't wish to take data more than one time per minute. (i.e. 60 times per hour). In this way we will not gather more data than a student can handle.
Now the activity is complete so you should save it so that students can load it at a later time and perform the experiment. Click on the "File" menu and choose "Activity" and then "Save"
Then click "OK" on the dialog box that appears.
You can now perform the activity and record data by pressing the green "Start" button.
The Finished Activity.
As you can see, creating an activity in Coach software consists of creating an empty project and activity, setting their parameters (like their name), telling the software which sensors you will be using and where they will be plugged in, telling the software how to display data from sensors, adding your own instruction texts, images, etc., and then setting up measurement settings.
Everything works by selecting something and then right clicking to get to a dialog box that has options that you can adjust. In almost all cases you can leave settings at their default.
Help and information is always available via the "Help" button that can be found in almost all Coach menus and dialogs, or in the large "?" button on the Coach software interface.
Once you are used to this software setting up an activity like this one takes less than ten minutes.
