2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

You can transmit sound via light? An engineering activity to demonstrate energy conversion among different types of waves (Resource Exchange)

Presented at PCEE Instructional Showcases

Developed by college engineering students and staff, this activity for upper middle and high school students involves the interconversion of waves. Students build the device following guided instructions, and along the way they are introduced to solderless breadboards, jumper wires, resistors, amplifiers and transformers. The system converts digital sound to light, sends the signal via laser to a solar cell, and then converts the signal into audio. Once the system is built, students connect a device with digital audio output (e.g., smart phone playing music) and listen to the playback over the speaker. The handout provided will include links to instructions on how to build the kit and assemble it, along with a list of applicable Next Generation Science Standards.

Authors

Dr. Erica J Marti http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1773-4599 University of Nevada - Las Vegas [biography]

Erica Marti completed her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). She holds a Master of Science in Engineering and Master of Education from UNLV and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to graduate studies, Erica joined Teach for America and taught high school chemistry in Las Vegas. While her primary research involves water and wastewater, she has strong interests in engineering education research, teacher professional development, and secondary STEM education. In 2021, Erica received the ASEE Pacific Southwest Early Career Teaching Award and two awards at UNLV for mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. She also received the Peter J. Bosscher Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award in 2019 from Engineers Without Borders and was recognized as a Nevada Woman in STEM by Senator Jackie Rosen.

Download paper (1.21 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session