MountainScience
Insulation
COMPUTER SCIENCE + PHYSICS
Temperature decreases with altitude and mountaineers
are often going into cold, snowy environments. Human
core temperatures must stay above 35°C or the person can
die.
Clothing insulates us, but different materials have different
insulation properties. Think about what you would wear on
a hot day and what you would wear on a cold day.
Here we investigate the insulation of common clothing
items using a Raspberry Pi.
The Experiment
What you’ll need: a Raspberry Pi with a temperature sensor and real-time clock; a selection of
clothing items of different thicknesses, such as gloves or socks; somewhere cold
1
Set up your Raspberry Pi to measure the temperature at 10 second intervals
for 500 seconds, as described in the Raspberry Pi learning resources at
www.raspberrypi.org/learning/temperature-log
2
Start with the Raspberry Pi at room temperature. Switch on the Pi, quickly
wrap it in the first item of clothing and put it outside or in your cold place
3
Wait the nine minutes or so until the Pi has finished taking readings and has
switched off, then bring it back inside.
4
Remove the Pi from the clothing and allow it to warm up again. Repeat with
other items of clothing.
5
Later, download the stored temperature data to your computer and plot
graphs of temperature against time
Further Investigation
• If you have a data logger, you could set up the data logger with temperature
sensors to take readings automatically.
• Which material is covering the beaker that cools slowest? Is there any other
material you could use that’s similar?
• Which materials are the most insulating when wet?
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