Lab Name W1: Introduction to Wireless Communications Technology
Subject Area Engineering, and Computer Science
Grade 9 - 12
Topic Electromagnetic Spectrum
Experiment Title Accessing different wireless communication transmissions across the electromagnetic spectrum
Hardware
  • COSMOS Toolkit: Computer Node
  • RTL-SDR
  • BunnyEar Antenna
Software
  • COSMOS Toolkit: Framework
  • ShinySDR
  • Shared Classroom collaboration (ie. Slack, Google Drive)
Number of Sessions to teach the topic 2
Educational standards to be addressed
  • HS-PS4-1
    Use mathematical representations to support a claim regarding relationships among the period, frequency, wavelength, and speed of waves traveling and transferring energy (amplitude, frequency) in various media.
  • HS-ETS1-1
    Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
COSMOS concepts to be used for the lab Electromagnetic Spectrum, Frequency, and Spectrum Crunch.
K12 Educational Goals (How the educational goals are achieved through teaching using the experiment, how the topic is connected to the COSMOS concepts used) As students try to find different transmissions at different frequencies, they will have tangible experiences with how humans use the electromagnetic spectrum for communication purposes.
Short Description and Walk-through of the experiment Students work in small groups:
  • Students open ShinySDR software on computer
  • Students must identify the frequencies where high power levels are observed.
  • Students use the ShinySDR decoding software to translate the signals into an audio noise on their speakers.
  • Students must take screenshots and paste various transmissions that they find.
Testbed mapping of the experiment Students could use antennas from nodes on the testbed to see if different transmissions are visible (i.e., airplane routes, police scanners from different neighborhoods)

Experiment Execution

Follow the instructions and press the START button to use the ShinySDR URL, in order to identify the frequencies with high power level. In order to terminate the experiment press STOP.

* RTL-SDR is required for this lab

Experiment Material

NGSS Lesson Plan
Lesson Support

© 2019 COSMOS Project. Created by Joel Bianchi, Energy Tech High School.