In my Earthquakes and Society course I use an arduino and MEMs sensor to introduce students to seismograms and to help them develop an intuitive understanding of seismogram analysis. The idea is to have them build their own sensors and explore the motions they can produce with the simple system (while it is connected to the computer in the classroom). The picture is pretty much all the information they need to connect the hardware, but I provide a little background on a breadboard, etc. Within a few minutes, non-science students are quite comfortable with the system.
Arduino accelerometer system. The arduino is the larger board, the small breakout contains an accelerometer.