Binary Punched Card Reader

Description

Kids start by writing a word on a card. Below each letter, they write the corresponding number using an encoding table (a=1, b=2, etc). Below each of those numbers are 5 holes, representing 1 bit and labeled 16, 8, 4, 2, and 1. After determining which numbers add up to the letter's code, those numbers are punched out, and the binary code is revealed.

The card is then fed through our reader. Letters are spoken out loud as they pass, and the full word is read when the card is pulled all the way through. Holes are detected using paper clips and aluminum tape. While optical sensors would be more reliable, we feel it's important to keep the "magic" out of technology when using it as a teaching tool. The paperclips form a physical connection to the foil tape when a hole has been punched, and this can be directly observed.

http://github.com/makeict/binary-punched-card-reader

Details

This project was a collaboration between members of our local makerspace, MakeICT. Contributors to this project include:

An online version of this activity can be found at http://devict.org/binary

Components

1 × Raspberry Pi

5 × Paper clips

1 × Foil tape

5 × LED's

1 × Wood

Discussions

Dr. Cockroach wrote 12/27/2016 at 23:02

Possible use with my cardboard project? perhaps.....

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Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 12/27/2016 at 23:14

possible, of course !

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Dr. Cockroach wrote 12/27/2016 at 23:40

Was thinking of either a very basic card or tape reader. I think this is more in keeping with what I am working with :-)

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toxi wrote 12/27/2016 at 21:30

Just FWIW - in East Germany of the 80s, we had this great punch card reader toy kit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/toxi/albums/72157600467182633 - great memories & good luck with your project!

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SopaXorzTaker wrote 03/19/2016 at 06:36

Offtopic: did you solder the wires directly to the RasPi? Poor little board then :'(

Also, isn't a Pi overkill? Why can't a MCU and a 16x2 character LCD do it also?

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Dominic Canare wrote 03/19/2016 at 16:50

No, there's an IDE cable and some headers in there.

This activity is meant for kids, so a large, colorful display is very appealing. Plus, each letter and the final message are read out loud using espeak, and its robotic voice is especially endearing to people.

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Danny Vergalen wrote 03/04/2016 at 14:51

Awesome! Where can i find the manual for the hardware? I would like to build it so i can use it in our library with Coderdojo.

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Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 02/24/2016 at 04:10

I see that there is no "clock" because code 0 is not used.

But did you map something to codes 30 and 31 ? :-)

Did a kid try this "undocumented code" ?

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Dominic Canare wrote 02/24/2016 at 19:23

Yeah, no clock because the kids punch the holes themselves, and they don't always line-up well. Instead, as soon as one pin is triggered, any pin triggered is remembered until no pins are triggered. Not sure if that makes sense, but it does if you could see it in person.

30 is an escape character for inputting numerals. Haven't decided about 31 yet - might be used as a "shift" modifier.

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Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 02/24/2016 at 23:42

Yes, the algorithm makes sense to me :-) pretty clever !

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Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 02/19/2016 at 13:00

Awesome ! I'd love to make an optical version, see #Low-resolution scanner for cheap data input

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Binary Punched Card Reader

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