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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Biomimicry: Echolocation in Robotics

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students use ultrasonic sensors and LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots to emulate how bats use echolocation to detect obstacles. They measure the robot's reaction times as it senses objects at two distances and with different sensor threshold...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Boom Construction

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Student teams design their own booms (bridges) and engage in a friendly competition with other teams to test their designs. Each team strives to design a boom that is light, can hold a certain amount of weight, and is affordable to...
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Don't Bump Into Me!

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students' understanding of how robotic ultrasonic sensors work is reinforced in a design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots and ultrasonic sensors.
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Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Sound for Sight

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Echolocation is the ability to orient by transmitting sound and receiving echoes from objects in the environment. As a result of a Marco-Polo type activity and subsequent lesson, students learn basic concepts of echolocation. They use...
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Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: How Does an Ultrasonic Sensor Work?

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students learn how ultrasonic sensors work, reinforcing the connection between this sensor and how humans, bats, and dolphins estimate distance.
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Article
Other

Ds Health: Prenatal Screening for Down Syndrome

For Students 9th - 10th
This essay serves as a guide to prenatal testing for Down Syndrome and describes breakthroughs in ultrasound techniques which allow doctors to detect Down Syndrome without the need for an amniocentesis procedure.
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Unit Plan
Physics Classroom

The Physics Classroom: Sound Properties and Their Perception

For Students 9th - 10th
The concept of pitch and frequency is covered in this tutorial. Learn what frequency and pitch are, the difference between infra sound and ultrasonic frequencies, and how pitch is related to the frequency of a sound.
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Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: Echolocation in Action!

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
In this activity, students will experience echolocation themselves. They actually try echolocation by wearing blindfolds while another student makes snapping noises in front of, behind, or to the side of them.
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Handout
Georgia State University

Georgia State University: Hyper Physics: Ultrasonic Sound

For Students 9th - 10th
A brief explanation of what ultrasonic sound is and the devices that produce ultrasonic sound can be found here at the Georgia State University. Scroll down the page to read how ultrasonic sound is important to bats and towards the...
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Handout
Wikimedia

Wikipedia: Ultrasound

For Students 9th - 10th
Wikipedia offers information on the basics of ultrasound, "Sound or vibrations with frequencies too high to be audible by the human ear."
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Handout
Other

Sweetwater.com: What Is Infrasonic?

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource features a basic definition of infrasonic. It also explains the difference between infrasonic and subsonic.