Diary Entry - October

 

Awesome!
That’s the comment our yr 12 pupils made when they heard a song played with a laser pen. That’s right, we made it! The circuit we designed is modulating the laser light intensity of our laser pen, so if you connect the circuit to an I-pod, CD player, etc... the laser beam carries the signal across the lab, which is then received by a phototransistor connected to a mini-amplifier and then to a bigger amplifier and speaker.
We have shown this device to various people in our school and, so far, it has never failed to produce reactions of great amazement. We have achieved something quite cool and it’s great fun to play with it.
But let’s talk about the real issue here. With our modulated laser pen one can explain a lot of Physics. In fact, you could start talking about signal modulation, electronics, communications and even the photoelectric effect. Well, to know how we’ll use this device to teach these concepts you’ll have to wait until next month, because that’s what we’ll concentrate on in the next few weeks, i.e. generating ideas!

Alessio Bernardelli (Team Leader)

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