The Kids' Page / Activities for Junior Electricians

Kids' Resources

Here's a few links to try:

1) AT&T's well done site, the best I've seen for communications for kids:

http://www.att.com/attlabs/technology/forfun.html

2) From the United States Army Signal Corps. Includes a simple cellular telephone explanation:

http://www.gordon.army.mil/ocos/rdiv/ForKids.asp

3) Wonderful British site regarding telegraphy and communications. If you look closely at this site you'll find interactive semaphore demonstrations, good explanations of electrical principles, and a page that lets you compose and listen to Morse Code:

http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/refLibrary/IRlibrary.html

Link now dead

4)Telephone site done by kids:

http://www.thegrid.net/sunnyside/telephone/phone.htm

Pulled from the web. Who are you people? A sad, broken copy is here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010303014622/

www.thegrid.net/sunnyside/telephone/works.htm

5) Some kid oriented telephone history:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kids/tech1900/phone.html

6) Excellent electronic site:

Aside from a garish green this site is excellent for laypeople and children interested in electronics. Includes a cellular radio discussion. Best through a fast connection: http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/index.php external link)

Intuitive and simple written explanations

The telephone is an electrical instrument. Speaking into the handset's transmitter or microphone makes its diaphragm vibrate. This varies the electric current, causing the receiver's diaphragm to vibrate. This duplicates the original sound. Two more explanations below.

Click here for a very large graphic showing how telephones work. Relate this graphic to the one below and above. Your voice is sound in motion. Speaking causes sound waves. Hold a piece of binder paper by its corners close to your mouth. Loudly and firmly say "I don't understand any of this!" Feel that paper vibrate? That's sound in motion.

Telephone and radio transmitters convert that acoustic pressure into electrical pressure. That's why the electrical tester below shows a rise and fall as sound waves rise and fall. A radio or telephone receiver at the other end of our call then takes these variations in the current and throws the process into reverse. It works a speaker by the changes in the electrical signal, that is, a speaker now vibrates in sympathy with the varrying current it receives.

How do cellular telephone network work?

Science Projects

It's tough finding communications resources for kids on the net. I've been unable to find any telephone science project/fair sites on the web :-( Please let me know if you find one. For now, check out the page I've assembled here, it's called Activities for Junior Electricians. Well worth a look.  

The Kids' Page / Activities for Junior Electricians