SIMPLE TELEGRAPH

Materials needed: wood 3’-4’ long, 1 inch wide

1 “D” battery per group
1 paper clip
2 push pins
1 Christmas tree light
2 lengths of copper wire
1 piece of tape

The Goal: Your team’s goal is to use the assigned material to create a working telegraph
and hook it into an adjacent teams’ telegraph. When you complete this process your
group will be able to communicate 1850s style via dots and dashes.

Directions to assemble the Telegraph: First, take the paper clip and bend the larger loop
into and “L”. Then, bend out the smaller loop to form a hook, push the hook closed.
Now you are ready to attach the push pin to the piece of wood. Carefully push on pin in
the top of the wood about an inch from the end. After that you will need to get the
second pin and paper clip move the pin through the closed part of the hook you made and
push it into the wood (NOTE: do not push the pins all the way through the wood you will
need to connect these to the wires in a few minutes). Next, attach the Christmas tree light
to the push pins by wrapping the wire around the metal pins. One wire should attach to
each side of your keyboard. Now you are ready to attach the power supply to your Morse
set. To do this, attach the short wire to the (-) negative pole of the battery with a piece of
tape. After that, run the longer length of wire from the (+) positive end of the keyboard.
The other group that will complete your circuit will be doing the same thing that you are
at this point. Your finished product should look like the diagram below.

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Keyboard Keyboard

Your group is to send the following messages in Morse code:

• Hello, how are you?

• I am Fine.
• This is neat!
• How many people are in your group?
• Isn’t technology wonderful!
• Now come up with more on your own….
 Morse Code Alphabet
The International Morse code characters are:

A .- N -. 0 -----
B -... O --- 1 .----
C -.-. P .--. 2 ..---
D -.. Q --.- 3 ...--
E . R .-. 4 ....-
F ..-. S ... 5 .....
G --. T - 6 -....
H .... U ..- 7 --...
I .. V ...- 8 ---..
J .--- W .-- 9 ----.
K -.- X -..- Fullstop .-.-.-
L .-.. Y -.-- Comma --..--
M -- Z --.. Query ..--..