Project: Crystal Radio

Make your very own radio that actually works! Also learn all about how radios and electronics work along the way.

Comment 34

Inspiration

Remember the time in high school when you had to sit in class and heard all about how radios revolutionized mass media and use waves to send information over vast distances? Well, we don't want children to just be hearing about science but also experience it. So we decided will be making a crystal radio and help teach children about electronics components, AM radio waves and how they work.

What it does

An AM crystal radio captures radio signals sent out by a broadcasting tower and converts the data encoded in the form of electromagnetic radiation into sound waves that we can hear! The "AM" in AM radio refers to "amplitude modulation", meaning that sound information is integrated into changes in amplitude of the EM waves. The length of radio waves allows the signals to travel long distances without much disturbance.

How we built it

The internet is a wonderful plethora of information! We take ideas from youtube tutorials and tweak them to optimize them for our intentions. As we plan on taching this activity in impoverished rural communities, we must design the product with durability, availability, and cost in mind.

Challenges we ran into

Find a project that fits all of the restrictions given to us but also making it very educational and exciting was the hardest part for us. Apart from that, boy oh boy is it difficult to find parts during Corona times...

Accomplishments that we are proud of

Our group was randomly assigned-- we literally had no clue who we were going to be working with until 2 days ago! Team Quaranqueens turned out to be an eclectic pod of hackers ranging from the first year to recent graduate with areas of expertise ranging from computer engineering to human biology! Despite this, our shared love of science education and hacking things together allowed us to overcome the barriers that separate us (cough cough Corona cough cough). The fact that we put together a project that we can definitely say we're proud of within the span of a few hours is nothing short of remarkable!

What we learned

That we take some of our resources for granted. Initially, the project idea was going to be creating a wifi-antenna, but that had to be scrapped because the likelihood of having a mobile device with data in a rural community is unlikely. But with the help of Pueblo's lovely team of mentors, we got our project idea ready to go in no time!

What's next for Quaranqueens?

Follow along and see what we have in store! We promise it'll be a ride!

Built With

  • engineering
  • physics
  • science
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Updates

posted an update —

Submitted and now hyping up for the presentation.

Yesterday was crunch time so we all had to do our bits, hence the lack of updates.

So far it looks promising. Its been a wild journey, thanks to the quaranqueens and those reading this for keeping with us while we work on this.

Excited and nervous. Let's do this!

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posted an update —

Been trying to get the project in working order. Might have to purchase more parts for thicker gauge antennas. I was hoping multiple lengths of 26AWG magnet wire would cut it but it apparently will not ;-;

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posted an update —

Might have lost my ability to write English, it's been a while since I have tackled concepts that are the very core of this project. The fascination and motivation outweighed every bit of typos and errors today.

But yes, a big chunk of the manual is complete, the prototype is in its troubleshooting stages and the video presentation planning is coming along swimmingly. (!!!!) (￣▽￣)

Almost at the end of the week too! (the time's flying by!) But of course -- a shoutout to the quaranqueens for working on the project on top of their other priorities this week. ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶
Loading bar of the project update to around 85% tonight, then? Hahaha, thanks for reading. Goodnight and see you in the morning!

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posted an update —

If we had a loading bar for our beloved project, I think we'd be around the 75% mark! Still tons to do, but really proud of the pace and how everything is coming together.

The manual, the prototype, the video presentation. The Quaranqueens' Crystal Radio is shaping up to be a force to be reckoned with! HYAHHHHH! (ง'̀-'́)ง

Can't wait for our efforts to be broadcasted and widely received ^---^ See you in the morning, folks!

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posted an update —

Dissecting how a thing works is fascinating when you mix the history of it as well. Crystal radio has made multiple appearances in the past - during wartimes and during the Great Depression to give a few examples. In fact, did you know crystal radio were known as wireless technologies? These devices were the ones responsible to bring voice broadcasts to the public. So, we are building something that pretty much helped contribute to concepts and things we use in our everyday life?

A little fun fact I found while researching that I just had to share!

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posted an update —

Day 2 of Hackathon - check and check. The workshops today have tremendously helped in letting us develop our project a little better. The following week, our days shall be packed with a few hours set aside for our Crystal Radio. Sounds exciting and I can't wait to see what happens next weekend when we unveil the final product.

Fingers crossed - but for now, it's time to keep working till then.

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posted an update —

The intricacies of this project blow me away as I read through mechanisms, a little daunting --but making the prototype build with scraps and things that are found really cheap is just mindboggling?

Shoutout to the other Quaranqueens for making this magic happen. Great job and I say this with pride -- now back to work I go!

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posted an update —

Research. Research. Research!

The three things to do when writing and planning out the manual for your prototype. A lot of catching up with old and familiar concepts that I personally haven't seen in years. Excited? Yeah. Ready for the challenge? YES!

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posted an update —

After much discussing between an array of ideas between team members, with help from the wonderful mentors volunteering their time at the hackathon, we've decided to go with making an am crystal radio! It'll be a great project to demonstrate induction, EM radiation, and teach children insight on how the communication technologies that run society work!

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