Coastermate

Coastermate is an iPhone diary app for your roller coaster rides that stores gravity force data from your device's accelerometer. Although the app is themed for roller coasters, it can be used to collect gravity data from a variety of activities (e.g. sports, driving, etc). It is the perfect app for that amusement park field trip with your physics teacher!

Instructions

Start by creating an entry for the roller coaster you are riding by tapping the '+' button on the main screen. Before the ride leaves the loading station hit the 'Start' button and place your device in a closed, tight pocket to minimize any back-and-forth motion of the device itself. When the ride is complete hit the 'Stop' button to view the data. You can adjust the time scale of the graph with the slider below it and inspect an individual data point with the trace circle that appears after data collection ends. Your coaster data will be backed up when you sync your device with iTunes if the normal backup process is enabled. You can also export a data run by tapping the compose email icon when viewing a data run.