Signalling Challenge

image from www.athropolis.com

As an end of term activity I thought I’d have a go at getting my S3 class to try some old fashioned telecommunications methods, with an outdoor learning/group work/challenge slant.

So we’ve got 4 teams, sending the same message – ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’ – by four different methods -

• International Flag Code (on A4 sized flags)
• Morse Code (using a signal lamp)
• Semaphore (using two A4 sized flags)
• SMS text (using the pupils’ own mobiles)

The challenge will take place over the full length of the school campus – a few hundred metres – and the messages being sent will be both timed and checked for accuracy.

To try to even things up a bit the SMS team have to relay their message between all 4 members of the team, as it seems pretty obvious that they’ll be quicker.

To provide the flags for the flag code I made up a powerpoint, which when printed out double sided as slides gives the pupils flags with the letters on the back. The powerpoint is available on my ‘S3 & 4 Work’ page.

Results will follow….