Commercial sensor carts are superb instruments at a classroom price. Pickle Core exists for the student who has no bench at all — so the comparison below is about what it takes to put a working lab in one pair of hands.
List prices as published in 2026; see the row-by-row table below.
| Capability | Commercial product | List price | In Pickle Core |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dynamics cart with position, velocity, acceleration | PASCO Smart Cart ME-1240 | $199 | Smart Cart (encoder axle) |
| Force on the cart | built into the Smart Cart | — | 20 kg load cell on the nose |
| Second cart for collisions | PASCO two-cart system ME-5717B | $659 (both carts) | print a second cart from the free files |
| Track | PASCO 1.2 m dynamics track | sold separately | printed 1 m rail, in the box |
| Photogate timing | Vernier Go Direct Photogate | $109 each | two PickleGate forks, in the box |
| Rotary motion | Vernier Go Direct Rotary Motion | $199 | spindle platform, same encoder |
| Projectile launcher | PASCO Mini Launcher class | $300+ | marble launcher, in the box |
| Software | Capstone / Graphical Analysis | licence | one free HTML dashboard |
| Lab handouts | publisher manuals | extra | five labs, CC BY-SA, in the box |
PASCO and Vernier prices are the manufacturers' published US list prices in 2026 and change without notice; the DIY estimate is from the kit's shopping list (manual 00) at small-quantity retail. Pickle Core is not affiliated with PASCO or Vernier.
Buy the finished kit, or download everything and print your own. Either way the labs are the same.