My experience at the Children’s Museum was a generally positive one.  I suffered some limitations with regard to gaining children’s attention, however the technical aspect of my project was successful.  My project was an Interactive Morse Code Teaching Device.  The general difficulty of the technical aspect of my project was, in my opinion, intermediate and I can push myself to do more.  I was limited by struggling with CAD up until close to the deadline.

To my surprise, parents actually thought my project to be very interesting and cool.  Kids, however, at their young age had difficulty understanding the prompt, which was to type in a phrase from Morse Code on the button provided.  I often times had to demo the project to the kids, and even still they preferred just pressing the button randomly instead.  When I helped one child through the demo, though, the parents often lit up with joy.

I think that an additional feature I could have added was an LED Display that would guide the children through each character so it was more visual for them.  I would also definitely like to add a musical feature and possibly turn the letters into pictures.

This visit makes me understand that little children have difficulty understanding the concept of language, and I must either find a new way to teach kids Morse Code or change the idea of my project.

I believe I will come upon new technical difficulties as I go further in my project, as I plan on having an LED Display support the foundation of my original project.  The experience will hopefully be broadened by a more visual display.  The capabilities I will add in my finished project will be wide ranging with regards to lights, sounds and sensors from children, as I may use the movement of children to trigger a response.