Lisa Zyga reports how to use with secondary school students a Nintendo Wii remote control accelerometer as a pendulum.

To teach students concepts in dynamics and kinematics such as force, velocity and acceleration, Vannoni and Straulino used the intact Wii remote to measure acceleration of a swinging pendulum. They connected the remote to a PC via Bluetooth, and used software to interpret data from the accelerometers to numerically and graphically calculate the pendulum’s position, velocity, and acceleration.

There're more ideas here, High School Teachers. Ways to use your mouse, ...

Thanks, Lora, for pointing to this device. I'd missed it.

Tablet PC Education Blog