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Google’s new Android smartphone app makes kids scientists

While other apps can easily feed you with hard sensor data, Google’s Science Journal goes a step further by taking a more thorough approach. Google hasn’t disclosed its financial expectations with the Science Journal app, but it forms part of the company’s initiative called Making and Science, which is created to encourage science exploration.

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Now that the Science Journal app is launched, a significant surge in the sale of Android smartphones and tablets among educational institutions can be expected. To that end, we have released the microcontroller firmware code on GitHub and will be open sourcing the Android app later this summer. To boost what Science Journal can do, Google has partnered with San Francisco’s Exploratorium to develop external hands-on activity kits.

Google’s Making Science website also contains tips on six starter experiments to try out initially, including two that involve using extra sensors – or even building them yourself.

Using the sensors in any Android phone you can measure sound, light. It then lets you record experiments, make notes on your observations, and turn your data into graphs.

Comparing results of a research gets easier with the app because you can add voice note while taking measurement. While conducting experiments, the app gives you the option to record voice and upload pictures as well which will help keep a better record of the projects. Check out Google’s Making & Science website for more details about the app.

For those of you who are serious science freaks and are more inclined towards finding out the reasons of why certain things work the way they do this application would be a safe haven for you. These Science Journal kits include low-cost sensors, microcontrollers and craft supplies that bring science to live in new ways. This is true to some extent and Google’s Instant Apps addressed the Google’s problem by announcing a support to 2012 release of Jelly Bean. Google says the app could seem boring to some engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California as it’s not built for them.

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The Science Journal app is available for free from the Google Play Store. The download file weighs only 14 MB and customers need a smartphone running on Android 4.4 KitKat to use the app.

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