Lab Name Properties of Waves studied with GNU Radio
Subject Area Science
Grade 9-12
Topic Waves
Experiment Title Sending and Capturing Waves to Study Wave Properties.
Hardware Linux machines (ex laptop, raspberry pi) and Software Defined Radios (ADALM Pluto).
Software GNU Radio, COSMOS Toolkit Framework
Number of Sessions to teach the topic 1
Educational standards to be addressed New York State P-12 Science Learning Standards
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.
Clarification Statement: Examples of data could include descriptions of waves classified as transverse, longitudinal, mechanical, or standing, electromagnetic radiation traveling in a vacuum and glass, sound waves traveling through air and water, seismic waves traveling through Earth, and direction of waves due to reflection and refraction.
Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to algebraic relationships and describing those relationships qualitatively.
COSMOS concepts to be used for the lab Frequency Shift Key = use different frequencies to represent different numbers 0 and 1.
K12 Educational Goals (How the educational goals are achieved through teaching using the experiment, how the topic is connected to the COSMOS concepts used) Students use computer radio network to visualize the graphical representation of waves. They learn that they can use a high frequency radio wave to represent one and a low frequency radio wave to represent zero.
Short Description and Walk-through of the experiment One group of students use GNU Radio to send a wave from a Pluto transmitter. Another group of students use GNU Radio to capture the wave with a different laptop. Students from both groups draw the waves and determine the waves' properties from the graphs. Students in the transmitter group adjust the frequency or amplitude of the wave and record the shape, frequency and amplitude of the wave.
Testbed mapping of the experiment Use a node on the COSMOS testbed to send a wave to another node. Repeat this experiment with different properties of waves. The data is saved to a file for students to visualize the waves.

Experiment Execution

Select the appropriate function of the Node (Transmitter or Receiver), and press START to begin the experiment. In order to terminate the experiment press STOP.

FSK Transmitter FSK Receiver

Experiment Material

NGSS Lesson Plan
Worksheet

© 2018 COSMOS Project. Created by Peter Tsun, Newtown High School.