

The PocketLab – Wireless sensor for STEM education - ycnews
http://thepocketlab.com/index.html

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stephengillie
This is really cool. With the phone connection, it kinda reminds me of the
extra probe on Medical Tricorders (from Star Trek), where that device had
additional sensors, and was smaller and easier to move around a patient's
body.

Likewise, this instrument can be placed in locations where a smartphone would
be difficult to position and read. Or it can be a small distance away - put
the sensor outside while you remain comfortably indoors. Put the sensor inside
a centrifuge while you remain relatively stationary. Put the sensor inside a
model rocket while you remain on the ground.

I can't wait to see these put on RC cars and drones and RC blimps.

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gh02t
Hah, this is pretty neat. I've been working on a hobby project to build
something very similar myself using an ESP8266 + sensors crammed into a
hollowed out wall wart. This sort of project is really fun, I recommend trying
it.

As a product, the PocketLab looks like it provides a jump start into playing
with sensor networks. I would have loved to have something like this as a kid
in school. The price seems a bit steep considering the specs on the guts, but
I imagine part of this is the software + the fact that this is an early
adopter preview. If it's rugged enough to last and the software easy to use
then this would certainly be worthwhile for educators.

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staticvar
It looks like the TI sensortag in a different case and three times as
expensive.

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staticvar
Here's a link to the TI sensor tag for $29.

[http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2650stk](http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2650stk)

I wonder what the unique selling proposition of this new product is.
Curriculum around environmental monitoring is definitely a win! If these folks
do a good job with that then that might be a justification for educators to
pay more if they can see it as a contribution to curriculum development.

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layman
You may deem me off-topic, but I hate any page that has auto-play set, that
too with volume! I visited your page in Firefox with NoScript and it was
playing audio right away even without the video loading. Sorry, that's bad
design!

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zardo
That looks like a cool product. I think a school teacher/curriculum principal
would be more successful in getting a bulk purchase made with lesson plans
available(I would focus on commoncore curriculum to hit the widest audience).

