I’ve been working on the Communicator badge with my Scout Group and one of the tasks that we’ve been working on is Morse Code. I found a great ad-supported site called Morse Code Translator | Morse Decoder which allows you to press dashes and dots into one window and get an immediate text translation in the other window. It also works in the other direction.
Here’s a screenshot showing it in action.
On the left you type in text and the Morse code appears on the right.
Alternatively, you can type dots and dashes on the right and see plain text appear on the left hand side.
To make sure that my Scouts don’t see inappropriate ads, I’ve hosted an iframe containing this code that I can use in my next meeting. The plan is for Scouts to send Morse using little LED flashers that we’re making, whilst other Scouts key in the dots and dashes that they see into the decoder. My “version” of this decoder is here: Morse Decoder – bish.co.uk
The LED “flashers” are made with a cheap Lithium Cell and LED and a bit of sellotape to act as an insulator and hold the LED against the bottom of the cell. You need to bend the wire slightly so that it only touches the top of the cell when you press it.
Total cost per “flasher” is less than 15p per Scout (I bought 500 LEDs for £7.99 and 50 CR2032 button cells for £6.47 from Amazon.
Other useful links:
Make an Easy and Extreme LED Throwies | Make: (makezine.com)
How to Make Batteries From Spare Change | Instructables
