LIVE! From the Science department, here is the latest breaking news:

It has been rumored that several parents have been disturbed recently by mysterious sounds in the dark of the night, only to find that the sound disappeared just as soon as the light was turned on to look for it… Then, giving up, the distraught parents would go back to bed, only to have the evil sound reappear shortly thereafter (and so on, ad nauseam).

Did this happen to you? If so, I’m entirely to blame (no, really). You have been the victim of a very small electronic gadget called an “Aggravator.” Quite a few of these devious devices were build by Washburn Academy high school students in the recent “Electronics 101″ class.

It’s a simple device that uses a light sensitive do-hickey to control a circuit that will then wait 5 minutes before activating a “tone generator” (buzz maker), generating this highly aggravating sound. These devices were built from scratch, starting with a bag of electronic parts and a soldering iron.

First, of course, the students had to learn how to solder. Once that was in hand, they then had to identify and define the various parts: resistors, capacitors, transistors and more, and understand how to place them correctly on a printed circuit board.

This whole procedure gives the students lots of hands-on experience and mass on the various electronics parts. Then, as I follow this up with my little lectures about how the components work…well, let’s just say we have a bunch of up-and-coming electronic geniuses on our hands pretty soon (so watch out!).

We have now started an Electronics Class 102, with even more students attending. This time however, we are building an electronic device that will prove only mildly aggravating towards the parents… unless you like to listen to the radio of course.

We are building about 15 FM Radio Transmitters. If you happen to tune into your favorite FM radio station in the near future, you should not be surprised if you hear your “geek” (and proud of it) child broadcasting their own special show. Not to worry – the range of these FM radio stations is only about 900 ft at their peek performance. Of course that’s enough to cause some interesting effects in the neighborhood.

Anything to get our budding and blossoming geeks motivated, right?

Stay tuned for further updates from the Washburn Academy Science Department.

Best Regards,
Chief Geek
Torben Hansen,
Washburn Academy
Math/Science Teacher

Washburn Academy can be contacted at washburnacademy@gmail.com. You can also call the main school phone at (727) 647-1668.