STEM Activity: Create a Morse Code Bracelet

Are you familiar with a unique kind of communication called Morse code? Rather than using words and sentences, Morse code uses dots and dashes, usually in the form of electrical pulses, to communicate messages.

Learn about Morse code while you use it to create a personalized bracelet! Using this unique system, your bracelet will symbolize your name with different colored beads.

Materials Needed

• Craft or jewelry beads
• Crayons or markers
• Morse Code Chart (link to provided chart)
• Pen or pencil
• Scissors
• Scrap paper
• String

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Start by looking at this Morse Code Chart. Each letter is represented by dots, known as “dits,” and dashes, known as “dahs,” or a combination of dits and dahs.
    
2. Next, write your name on the printable Morse Code Chart in the space provided. You also can use a piece of scrap paper.
    
3. Write each letter of your name using the corresponding dits and dahs as shown on the chart. You’ve now translated your name into Morse code!
    
4. Choose one color of bead to represent the dits and choose a different color bead to represent the dahs. Make sure you have 25 to 50 beads in at least two colors.
    
5. Color the beads on the printable Morse Code Chart so you can remember your color choices.
    
6. Cut a piece of string long enough to fit on your wrist and to hold all the beads for your name.
    
7. Tie one end of the string with a knot large enough to keep the beads from falling off.
    
8. Lay out your beads, matching the colors to the dits and dahs for the letters in your name.
    
9. Slide the beads onto the string one at a time.
    
10. Tie the two ends of the string together. Now you have a beaded bracelet that spells your name in Morse code!

What Are We Discovering?

National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductee Samuel F.B. Morse, born on April 27, 1791, invented both the telegraph and the electronic alphabet known as “Morse code.” A portrait painter turned inventor, he realized that pulses of electrical current could convey information over wires. Once Morse developed the lightning wires of the telegraph that would carry the Morse code, the first message was sent on May 24, 1844, on a line constructed between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Morse code was developed to transmit messages. Throughout history, many different forms of communication have been established to give and receive information. One of the oldest forms is verbal communication, including the tradition of oral storytelling. What other ways of communicating can you think of? What other technologies have impacted communication?

Keep the Fun and Learning Going

For more awesome, hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) activities like this one, check out Camp Invention^®!