Analogic devices were, in the past, the best (and mostly unique) way to measure physical quantities of interest. With the great improvements in measuring technologies nowadays, it might happen that, students use in their experimental activities digital instruments without knowing how they work in terms of physical mechanisms, nor how they were developed, with the risk of losing the information about device-environment interactions. In our experience, starting from the functioning mechanism of an ancient galvanometer, we prepared a teaching course in a laboratory context, to improve learning on stationary currents in a secondary school. The good results obtained and discussed in a Bachelor thesis at the University of Trieste, suggests that this kind of approach could be extended to other ancient measuring instruments to teach students how physics has developed, thanks to the design and the use of smart instruments.
