Communicating with Light Patterns

Communicating with Light Patterns — Can you make up a new way to communicate only using light and patterns?

Materials:

1. Flashlight
2. A dark surface
3. Paper to write down patterns
4. Pencil
5. Yellow crayon
6. Black crayon

What to do:

Create your patterns

1. Take your flashlight and try shining it on the dark surface.  Can you see the different patterns you can make?  

• Example:  The word “hello” can look like this with light patterns:

• Or something different like this: “How are you?”

• Use your flashlight to draw shapes that represent words.

2. Try to make a pattern, shape or signal for each letter of the alphabet, numbers 1-10 or common words.

3. Write down the patterns that you create on your paper.

• Write the letter, number or word with the pattern next to it.
• Write down the patterns that you create on your paper.

Test it out

1. Have a conversation with someone at home without saying a word and see if they can crack your code!  
2. Let them use the patterns you wrote on your paper as a key.
3. Have them create new patterns and see if you can guess what they are saying too!