As part of National Science and Engineering week the Museum of Computing in Swindon is holding two events on Saturday 12th and Saturday 19th of March.
To tie in with this year’s theme of “Communications”, the museum is taking a step back in time to explore communication methods of the past in its “Retro Communications Workshops”. Visitors will be able to build and try tin-can telephones, see how far they can make them work and if they can be used around corners.
Another activity will be building morse code keys from Lego and use these to transmit messages across the museum. On the afternoon of the 12th we will be joined by an ex Special Forces signaller who will be giving expert lessons in morse code.
There will be flag waving as we try our hand at semaphore and secret messages will be passed in our ‘codes and ciphers’ section where there will also be a competition to decrypt a secret message. Finally we are hoping to have a 1960′s tele-type up and running, the predecessor of the keyboard and monitor that we all use today.
Museum curator Simon Webb said: “Communication is so important to us all today, we all use computers and mobile phone every day to keep in touch. It’s going to be great fun to explore how it used to be.”
The workshops will run from 10:00 to 16:00, standard museum admission charges apply.
For more details visit the Museum of Computing website www.museumofcomputing.org.uk
