We are coming up with ways to track the plane while it is in the air and even take pictures and video from the plane. We connect a GPS unit, a radio transmitter and a battery power supply then let her go!
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| A GPS unit on top of the wing |
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| A radio transmitter below the wing |
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| Testing the battery life and voltage |
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| Ground station showing the plane's position while in flight |
Here is a link to some video of the Ground Station in action. It is written in "Processing", a programming language developed at MIT.
Processing and Wiring/Arduino are both open source projects suitable for children from Grade 6 and up. The emerging field of Physical Computing gets kids hands on with fun projects that give life to real world objects.
For younger kids, the Telus World of Science is using a platform called Crickets and a simple language called Scratch. Here are a couple of websites featuring projects for younger kids:
http://www.pienetwork.org/crickets/
MIT backgrounder
Learning outcomes:
- Map reading
- Coordinate systems (See Google Earth blog post)
- Voltage, Current and Power
- and, well.. planes (the science of flight)
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