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These resources have been reviewed and selected by STEM Learning’s team of education specialists for factual accuracy and relevance to teaching STEM subjects in UK schools.

Communicating Over Distance

This activity, from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), introduces students to the necessity of developing standards and protocols for communication.

It is intended that students will be able to:
• Build a simple electrical circuit
• Design a code for easy transmission of messages between two teams
• Explain why global protocols are required

Telemedicine is a new and fast developing field in healthcare. Even 20 years ago, the idea of a surgeon being able to operate a robot from hundreds of miles away in order to perform an operation seemed like science fiction. Today, this is not only possible but engineers, working with scientists and doctors, are now designing robotic systems which will be able to operate on patients with no human intervention at all.

In this practical session, students work in small teams to investigate the necessity of developing standards and protocols for communication using a basic electrical circuit. The activity is supported by the building the communicator activity sheet, the code word activity sheet and the Morse Code activity sheet.

Related activities can be found in the Remote Operations sub-collection.

This activity is supported by the video  Robotic Surgery and the video Remote Medicine.

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