Science Journal is an app that turns your Android phone into a mobile science tool, allowing you to use the sensors in your phone to explore the world around you. The Making & Science team launched Science Journal a few months ago at Bay Area Maker Faire 2016 and have been excited to see different projects people have done with it all over the world!

Today we are happy to announce that we are releasing Science Journal 1.1 on the Google Play Store and also publishing the core source for the app. Open source software and hardware has been hugely beneficial to the science education ecosystem. By open sourcing, we’ll be able to improve the app faster and also to provide the community with an example of a modern Android app built with Material Design principles.

One important feature in Science Journal is the ability to connect to external devices over Bluetooth LE. We have open source firmware which runs on several Arduino microcontrollers already. In the near future, we will provide alternate ways to get your sensor data into Science Journal: stay tuned (or follow along with our commits)!

We believe that anyone can be a scientist anywhere. Science doesn’t just happen in the classroom or lab. Tools like Science Journal let you see how the world works with just your phone and now you can explore how Science Journal itself works, too. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

By Justin Koh, Software Engineer