Building Better Teaching Aids – Why I Keep Redesigning Everything
“Good teaching aids don’t just demonstrate science—they make students think.”
That simple idea sits behind an awful lot of what I do.
Over the years, I’ve accumulated a workshop full of:
- Sensors
- Cameras
- Electronics
- PASCO equipment
- 3D printers
- Laser cutters
- DIY experimental rigs
And yet, despite all the excellent commercial science equipment available today… I still keep redesigning things.
Not because the original equipment is bad.
But because teaching has changed.
Especially online.
The Traditional Problem with Teaching Equipment
Many pieces of science apparatus were designed decades ago with one assumption:
The student is standing right next to it.
That worked reasonably well in a classroom where:
- Students crowded around a bench
- The teacher pointed at something small
- Everyone pretended they could see it properly
The reality?
Usually:
- The students at the front saw everything
- The students at the back saw almost nothing
And online learning magnifies that problem dramatically.
A tiny moving needle on a meter? Invisible.
A subtle colour change? Hard to spot.
A delicate oscillation experiment? Lost completely on camera.
So the question becomes:
How do you redesign science demonstrations for the modern world?
Why Commercial Equipment Isn’t Always Enough
Commercial science equipment is often:
- Extremely accurate
- Well engineered
- Robust
But it is not always:
- Easy to film
- Easy to visualise
- Designed for remote learning
Many systems were never intended to be:
- Seen through a camera lens
- Viewed on a phone screen
- Streamed live online
That changes the design priorities completely.
The Rise of the “Visual Experiment”
When teaching online, visibility becomes critical.
Students must be able to:
- Clearly see what is changing
- Understand where to look
- Follow the experiment step-by-step
This means experiments need to become:
Larger
Clearer
More visually obvious
Sometimes that involves:
- Bigger displays
- Better lighting
- Coloured indicators
- Digital overlays
And sometimes it means redesigning the experiment entirely.
Using PASCO Equipment as the Starting Point
Systems from PASCO Scientific have become incredibly useful because they bridge the gap between:
- Practical experimentation
- Real-time data collection
- Visualisation
Instead of:
“Trust me, the graph should look like this…”
Students can see:
- Live graphs forming
- Sensor readings changing instantly
- Direct relationships between variables
That transforms understanding.
Especially in:
- Motion experiments
- Electricity
- Waves
- Gas laws
- Reaction rates
The experiment becomes interactive rather than observational.
But Even Then… I Still Modify Things
Because once you start filming experiments regularly, you notice problems.
For example:
- A sensor blocks the camera angle
- Reflections make readings difficult to see
- Important movements are too small on screen
- Equipment occupies the wrong space for multi-camera filming
So gradually:
rigs evolve.
DIY Builds – Solving the Problems Commercial Equipment Doesn’t
This is where the workshop becomes important.
Sometimes the solution is surprisingly simple:
- A different mounting bracket
- A larger scale model
- A redesigned support
- Better positioning for cameras
Other times it becomes a full DIY project.
For example:
- Building a low-cost linear air track
- Creating custom mounts for sensors
- Designing rigs specifically for filming experiments
The goal is not simply:
“Can the experiment work?”
But:
“Can students understand it instantly?”
Multi-Camera Teaching Changes Everything
One of the biggest changes in modern teaching is the ability to combine:
- Close-up views
- Wide shots
- Data screens
- Live annotation
All simultaneously.
Instead of students trying to look:
- At the teacher
- At the experiment
- At the graph
They can see all three at once.
That massively reduces cognitive overload.
It also allows:
- Slow demonstrations
- Instant replay
- Highlighting of critical moments
A tiny detail suddenly becomes obvious.
Why Interactivity Matters
Students learn best when they:
- Predict outcomes
- Make decisions
- Observe results
Good teaching aids encourage this.
Bad teaching aids encourage passive watching.
That’s a huge difference.
So I increasingly design experiments where students can say:
“What happens if we change this?”
And then we actually test it live.
This transforms science from:
memorisation
into:
investigation.
Improving Measurement Accuracy
Interestingly, redesigning experiments often improves accuracy too.
Because when you:
- Stabilise equipment better
- Reduce friction
- Improve alignment
- Use digital sensing
You reduce noise and uncertainty.
Students then see:
- Cleaner results
- Clearer trends
- Better relationships between variables
Which makes interpretation easier.
Teaching Aids Should Support Thinking
This is the key point.
A teaching aid is not there to:
look impressive.
It is there to:
make the student think clearly.
The best demonstrations:
- simplify complexity
- focus attention
- reveal patterns
And that often means:
redesigning the original setup
The Unexpected Benefit – Students See Engineering Too
One thing I particularly enjoy is that students begin to see:
- problem solving
- prototyping
- iterative design
Not just science content.
They realise:
science equipment is designed by people
experiments can be improved
engineering and teaching overlap constantly
That’s a valuable lesson in itself.
And This Is Why I Keep Redesigning Everything
Not because I dislike commercial equipment.
But because:
- teaching changes
- technology changes
- online learning changes expectations
And good teaching evolves alongside it.
Every redesign asks the same question:
“How can I make this clearer?”
Because when students can:
- see clearly
- interact directly
- understand visually
Science stops feeling abstract.
And starts making sense.
