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Remote Controls the incredible saga of invisible light. by Samuel Bradshaw and Ryan Roose (of 7 th ). The process, as observed. Point a small handheld object, called a remote control, at a TV. Boink! At the press of a button, the TV illuminates itself!. Inside said device.
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Remote Controlsthe incredible saga of invisible light by Samuel Bradshaw and Ryan Roose (of 7th)
The process, as observed • Point a small handheld object, called a remote control, at a TV. • Boink! At the press of a button, the TV illuminates itself!
Description of components • The buttons send signals to the circuit board by pressing them. • The circuit board receives these signals and translates them into electric pulses. • Capacitors help by storing energy that can be used by the remote. • The LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes) receive electric pulses and give off light.
Behind the scenes (1/2) • As you know, there are many kinds of light, both visible and invisible.
Behind the scenes (2/2) • A remote control uses infrared light, which comes just after red in the electromagnetic spectrum, to send signals to the TV.
Transmitting the signal • When a button is submitted to pressure, the circuit board transmits an electrical signal to the LEDs. • The LEDs emit an intermittent transmission of light - all in 7-bit binary code (ones and zeros).
About binary code 01000001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 • Binary code uses ones and zeros to say “on” and “off” in continuous sequences at given times to make an electronic device do something. • With the remote’s LEDs, a short beam of light represents “0”, and a long beam of light represents “1”. • The TV then translates this binary signal into an action. • For example, “001 0010” means “Volume up” (this can vary in different brands).
Interference? • There are many other things that emit infrared light, from the sun to fluorescent lights (and back again). • The TV can distinguish remote control signals from other sources because the remote control only sends a particular wavelength of infrared light (usually 980 nanometers).
A tad of history (1/2) • The first TV remote controls were not wireless. They simply sent electric signals straight to the TV. • Eugene Polley, an engineer, invented the first wireless TV remote in 1955. • It was called “Flashmatic” and was essentially a flashlight that shined light on one of four photo cells around the TV screen. Each photo cell did something when light struck it.
A tad of history (2/2) • The next development used high-frequency sounds to send a signal. • By the early 1980s, the companies switched to infrared signals, which are what we use today.
Parenthesis: Credits </> • Samuel: Presentation, images, aesthetics • Ryan: Ideas, research, suggestions • http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/remote-control.htm ("How Remote Controls Work") • http://www.zenith.com/sub_about/about_remote.html ("About Zenith") • http://www.tvhistory.tv/ ("Television History") • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode ("Light-emitting diode") • http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookNERV.html ("The Nervous System") • http://www.nativevillage.org/Libraries/Media%20Library.htm ("Native Village Media Library") • http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Binary.html ("Binary")