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Junk Science: Taking My Temperature with the NXT

By Rick Rhodes

To see how NXT-2.0 and the new temp sensor performed, I ran the following test. (Click on the graphic for an enlarged view).

1) The bottom bar graph shows the temperature in our living room: 65.4 degrees Fahrenheit, proof of our extremely low natural gas consumption. (This has its downside, as you'll see from the next graph).

2) The middle graph shows the temp when my hand is wrapped around the temp sensor. (I didn't hold it long enough to actually warm it up, but 80 degrees Fahrenheit is a frighteningly low temperature for a body extremity).

3) The top graph shows the temp when the sensor is placed next to my body, underneath my shirt and fleece pullover. (It was only there for about 30 seconds, but an 87 degree body temperature indicates severe hypothermia--I'm heading for the fireplace).

I did establish a Bluetooth connection with the new software and firmware, so the next step is to test remote data logging. I want to test the exportable MyBlocks feature as well. More later.

Update: I thought I'd toss up another graph to show the sensors time response.















Here I took one 10 minute long run, first putting the probe under my arm, then under my tongue (not recommended!), and then after a short cool-off into a cup of hot tap water, & finally directly into a cup of ice water. I could even read off values, annotate, and rescale all in the software... and I did all this in about 15 minutes (including the 10 minutes for logging). It really makes it easy. This is showing only a portion of the things you can do with this new extension to the environment - hiding data, multiple sensor or multiple datasets, zooming on portions of the graph, and even built-in screenshots and saving data. Very handy. And no, I don't have a fever, I'm just warmer than Rick is ;).

--
Brian Davis
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