Morse code translator using the Arduino platform: Crafting the future of microcontrollers

The ability of the Arduino platform to enhance student interest and performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, while fostering skills that are important prerequisites for future IT careers, has been proven more than once in the past years. But can the future be crafted without the past? We believe that many past inventions crave the future, so their understanding is a bridge of knowledge that must be passed to students. According to Grand View Research website the microcontroller market will rise from the 20 billion units in 2015 to an amazing 39 billion units in 2020. Therefore, an increase on IT careers is also expected. The Morse code and the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication in the past and laid the groundwork for the communications revolution. In fact, although developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse (1791–1872) and other inventors, only in 1844 the first telegraph message, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, was sent. To provide the means to students to start learning this technology we have developed four experiences that introduce them to the fundamentals of communications, including the Li-Fi technology. This new technology is based on the Morse code, and can spark again the communications revolution by using tiny, imperceptible flickering lights can provide a new way of sending data to computers and mobile devices. Therefore, we decided to revitalize the almost forgotten Morse code by implementing it with an Arduino in order to lay again the foundations to this new revolution that is coming. This paper presents the implementation model of two Morse code translators, how they work, their implementation, and some results. We also present a VLC (Visible Light Communication) system based on the same principles of the Morse code building this way the foundation for students to proceed with this course of the investigation.