Archimedes Award for phyphox App

A team from RWTH Aachen University has been awarded the 2019 Archimedes Prize from MNU, the Association for the Promotion of STEM Education, for developing the phyphox app, which allows students to experiment with physics concepts.

The annual award, which comes with a prize money of 4,000 euros, honors innovative concepts and teaching methods in physics and mathematics.

Published in 2016, the Phyphox app gives pupils and students the opportunity to conduct experiments on their own and to get hands-on experience with data acquisition and analysis. Phyphox, short for “physical phone experiments,” uses the various sensors integrated in modern smartphones, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, and pressure sensors, as a basis for a broad range of experimental measurements.

It can also be used by teachers to demonstrate physics principles in a hands-on way.

The app was developed by a team led by Professor Christoph Stampfer and Dr. Sebastian Staacks from the RWTH Institute of Physics II. Coordinated by Professor Heidrun Heinke, a team of students and doctoral candidates from the RWTH Institute of Physics I is continually expanding the functionality of app. Furthermore, the team has developed additional materials, such as explanatory videos, to complement the app. With more than 600,000 users, phyphox has become a widely used tool in physics education.