Lab Name Introduction to waves, properties of waves, using experiment allowing the visualization of ambient waves.
Subject Area Science
Grade 8
Topic Waves
Experiment Title Visualization of ambient waves showing the frequency and amplitude.
Hardware (e.g. number of receivers, etc.) Linux machines (ex laptop, raspberry pi) and 2 Software Defined Radios (ADALM Pluto).
Software (e.g. GnuRadio) GNU Radio, COSMOS toolkit framework
Number of Sessions to teach the topic 1-2 sessions
Educational standards to be addressed
  • MS-PS4-1
    Develop a model and use mathematical representations to describe waves that include frequency, wavelength, and how the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy in a wave.
COSMOS concepts to be used for the lab Wireless signals, detection of wave signals over the air, signal strength, relationship between signal strength and amplitude
K12 Educational Goals (How the educational goals are achieved through teaching using the experiment, how the topic is connected to the COSMOS concepts used) Teaching waves and the properties of waves by visualizing ambient waves on the computer screen and observing the relationship between signal strength and amplitude.
Short Description and Walk-through of the experiment
  1. Teacher will use a short slide-show to introduce & explain the topic of waves, the different types of waves & the properties of waves.
  2. Materials & equipment are set up on student's desks.
  3. Activity:
    1. Students will turn the volume up on their computer and run the program loaded on it.
    2. Students will observe ambient wave signals on the graphs on their computer screen. They should find as many frequency signals as they can.
    3. Students will then observe the relationship between the power of the wave signal and its amplitude.
After all students complete their handouts there will be a share out with observations and comments.
Testbed mapping of the experiment The experiment can be extended by executing it into a testbed (ORBIT/COSMOS) through the following steps:
We define a particular node as the receiver and we change the nodes we use as transmitters. In this way, we perform the experiment using nodes in different locations and we can visualize the any ambient wave signals on the computer screen. From this visualization we can observe the relationship between signal strength and amplitude.

Experiment Execution

Press START to receive ambient wave signals. In order to terminate the experiment press STOP.

Experiment Material

NGSS Lesson Plan
Worksheet
Presentation

© 2018 COSMOS Project. Created by Richard Foster, Parkside Preparatory Academy MS2 Brooklyn, New York