e00a066.pdf

ELECTRONICS ON-LINE

Thinkquest

students make Internet projects

By Harry Baggen

Thinkquest is an organisation that aims at promoting the use of computers

and network technology in education. One of the means applied by

Thinkquest to achieve its goals is an organized competition in which

students can create their own website, in different categories.

Thinkquest [1] was founded in 1996. Since

then, their annual competitions have

attracted over 60,000 participants. There are

separate programmes for students (Internet

Challenge) and youngsters (Thinkquest

Junior). Especially the student entries are

often beautifully styled and structured and

certainly worth having a look at. All compe-

tition entries are available and freely accessi-

ble on Thinkquest’s website. We picked out

a few that we feel should be of interest to our

electronics-minded readership.

In ‘Electronics, an online guide for begin-

ners’ [2] we find a good general-purpose

introduction into the world of electronics. A

little theory, the structure of a circuit diagram,

the workings of components, soldering

together a circuit and a variety of circuits are

all discussed.

The Amateur Radio Web Site [3] is aimed

at budding radio amateurs. Although the

descriptions of the radio licences are applic-

able to the US situation only, these pages

contain lots of nice information.

The Soundry [4] teaches us a lot about

sound. The workings of the human ear, a

physics-class explanation of the phenomenon

‘sound’, applications of sound and a history

of sound-related discoveries and develop-

ments are the ingredients of this site. You’ll a

beautifully designed interactive sound lab in

which you turn the controls with your mouse

to make all kinds of sound effects audible.

The last Thinkquest site we’ll discuss here

was elected ‘best site of the year 1999’. Elec-

tricity Online [5] is a kind of course on ‘All

Things Electrical’. The course covers electro-

statics, magnetism and basic electronics.

Besides these subjects, many appli-

cations of electricity are discussed,

including basic building blocks like

a relay, but also telecommunication

equipment and computers. E also

found a section on electrochemistry

(how does a battery work?). In the

electricity generation department,

the subjects include solar cells, tur-

bines and transformers. Finally, a

small section is reserved for history

and many other things related to

electricity in one way or another.

There’s even an Electricity Game!

(005117-1)

Internet addresses

[1] Thinkquest :

http://www.thinkquest.org

[2] Electronics:

http://library.thinkquest.org/16497/

[3] The Amateur Radio Web Site:

http://library.thinkquest.org/17234/

[4] The Soundry:

http://library.thinkquest.org/19537/

[5] Electricity Online:

http://library.thinkquest.org/28032/

urls available as hyperlinks on the

Hyperlinks page of the Elektor Elec-

tronics website.

Elektor Electronics

10/2000

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