Advanced Laboratory Experiments in Physics

About TeachSpin
The Reicherts

TeachSpin, Inc. is dedicated to the design, development, manufacture, and marketing of apparatus appropriate for laboratory instruction in physics and engineering. Our goal is to become the world's premier supplier of high quality, rugged, reliable, hands-on instruments that allow any school, no matter what the size or individual expertise of its faculty, to teach a wide variety of classic and modern experiments.

All of our apparatus is designed and built by university physicists who have taught in the undergraduate lab and are well aware of the constraints of both student use and student laboratory budgets. Many of the advanced instruments are can give research quality data and lend themselves to open-ended upper level projects. Several of our instruments have been built in collaboration with faculty who have used our apparatus and then worked with us to make experiments they had built for their own students available to colleagues world wide.

Because they were s pecifically designed for teaching, these instruments promote conceptual understanding while providing quantitative data that is often of research quality. Although there is "No Resident Expert Required," the experiments are challenging and satisfying for faculty as well as students.

We in the physics community are not in the business of training technicians to manipulate equipment. Our mission is to educate physicists so that they will be able to create new instruments to explore new physics.

No matter what you call it, Advanced Physics Lab, Upper Division Lab, Junior/Senior Lab, Modern Lab, Optics Lab or even Great Experiments in Physics, TeachSpin apparatus offers your faculty and students a wide array of exciting and challenging hands-on physics experiments.

Our President, Dr. Jonathan F. Reichert, learned from his 30+ years of physics teaching experience that hands-on laboratory learning is absolutely essential to the development of student-scientists.

Students learn by doing
It is important for students to have many options (including those to make mistakes) when they attempt an experiment
They need the opportunity to make their own choices, develop their own data acquisition strategies, take real data, analyze their data, make modifications to their strategy and from this, draw their own conclusions

Though several companies provide apparatus for introductory science (high school and college) laboratories, it appears that TeachSpin is unique in its goal of providing affordable advanced (senior level) laboratory teaching apparatus. There are several reasons for this.

The market is relatively small for upper level instructional apparatus
The technical skills needed to develop these instruments are considerable
Companies which provide high-profit commercial equipment may have the technical ability to produce educational instruments, yet the market does not interest them

TeachSpin, in comparison, remains committed to the educational market, being owned and operated by members of the academic community and also employing several undergraduate and graduate students.

From Jonathan:
I began TeachSpin in 1992 only intending to build an instrument that would make it possible for every college or university, no matter what the expertise of its faculty, to teach Pulsed NMR as a standard advanced laboratory experiment. In the process of building that first instrument, I discovered a mission. TeachSpin is dedicated to creating rugged, reliable, and affordable hands-on instruments that any physicist, no matter what his or her area of expertise, can incorporate into an advanced laboratory program. In addition to designing instruments from my own repertoire, we have developed exciting collaborations that have enabled TeachSpin to offer a broader range of experiments. As of this writing, we have partnered with faculty from University of North Carolina, Charlotte, California Institute of Technology, and Calvin College. Perhaps you would be interested in a TeachSpin collaboration with your favorite experiment?

A crucial requirement for TeachSpin instruments is a combination of simplicity and reliability that can put an end to the only half-joking classic distinction among the laboratory sciences: If it's slimy, it's biology; if it smells, it's chemistry; and if it doesn't work, it's physics. When students, by themselves, can get apparatus to work, they "own" their results. We believe that all physicists deserve an experimental experience that leaves them ending the old saw with "and if it is stimulating, exciting, and fun, it's physics!"

From Barbara:
My picture is here for people who like to put a face to a voice.

Until now, I have been at an advantage because so many schools include photos on their websites. Now we are even up!

It has been a great delight to share my excitement about TeachSpin's hands-on instruments with so many scientists deeply committed to teaching. And it is gratifying to be part of a TeachSpin team dedicated to building equipment that makes both teachers and students look forward to lab.

I hope I'll be having an opportunity to help you put our instruments through their paces at an AAPT or APS meeting in the near future.

Vitae
Jonathan: BS, Case Institute of Technology; Ph.D., Washington University, St. Louis; Post Doc with N. Bloembergen at Harvard; Faculty, Case-Western Reserve and University at Buffalo; Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching; Visiting Faculty: Princeton, Middlebury College, Stevens Institute. Author, "A Modern Introduction to Mechanics".

Barbara: BA, Swarthmore College; MAT, Yale University; Physics Teacher, Columbia and Livingston High Schools in NJ, Buffalo Seminary, NY; President New Jersey Section AAPT, Physics Teaching Resource Agent, Presidential Award for Excellence 1994, addition of -Reichert courtesy 1991 AAPT Summer Meeting, Vancouver, BC.