The project as shown has been manufactured in hardwood with brass furnishings the reality is that any of these can be swapped out to suit the department.

The circuit is relatively simple consisting of :- A battery, The Brass Key which forms a switch, An LED and a 6Volt Buzzer. (The buzzer provides the electrical resistance to protect the LED form the full 9 Volts produced by the battery.)

The project can be adjusted to suit the departmental needs and available materials or pupil skill levels.

The basic circuit here uses a four way piece of connector block and therefore requires no soldering.

The connector block can be replaced with Vero board or a purpose made PCB should you require soldering or alternatively wish to weight the project more towards electronics.

Back matching file 2D Design - Download

Back matching file MillDesign - Download

Cutting depths are - Blue 22mm - Red 20mm and Green 10mm

Top Machining 2D Design - Download

Top Machining MillDesign - Download

Cutting Depths Are - Red as deep as clamping will allow - Black 2mm (Surface Skim) - Green is intended to be and Ovolo cutter thus it needs to be set depending on your tool the one we used was 7.5mm.

When building he unit shield one LED leg with some insulation from a piece of wire. It also serves as an aid to memory which leg is the positive.

Due to the delicacy of some parts turning will take place in two stages. This is done to ensure threading doesn't take place at the end of a long thin piece of material. Due to the potential variance in material that schools may use the level of deformation cannot be assured, therefore the safe option was elected.

Contact Pad. (Two Stage).

Ensure that 40mm of material is sticking out of the chuck (Ensure you enter this figure when prompted.)

Stage 1 - Threading Element - Download - Stage 2 Finish Turning - Download

Handle (Single Stage)

Handle - Download

Locking Grip (Two Stage)

Stage 1 - Threading Element - Download - Stage 2 - Finishing Turning - Download

Spacing Washer (Two Stage)

Stage 1 - Drilling - Download - Stage 2 - Finishing Turning - Download

As was stated the project can be altered to suit materials and pupil levels. In the following picture I reduced the project to it's bare minimum due to this class having lost time due to other activities encroaching on their D&T time. Although the outcome was a working artifact in my opinion the charm of the morse key was lost and all we had was a buzzer board.

In a similar circumstances this class had time to chamfer the block with the result that the unit was lifted significantly in my opinion.

The difference between the students that had time to work on their block and brass strip was marked. A second lesson was that the wrong buzzers were ordered, these were PCB mount buzzers and the result was that one of the assistants had to solder on flying leads and the buzzers had to be glued to the wood. (My error so I had to live with it).

It is worth adding CAD CAM to this project, thus pocketing out the back of the board. The outcome is enriched in the students eyes and the additional learning is significant.

This final version was fully pocketed out and a sticker was designed by the pupils to help remind them of the more codes.

Other keys produced as alternative options.

Switch Only.

Supplementary Material.

Morse Code Alphabet - Download

Depending on the level of weighting you are wishing to give to electronics I have included an electronics word search for use as a starter or finishing exercise.

Finally to show how morse code might have been used to pass messages between agents six exercise sheets have been created to allow pupils to form groups and transact messages. (There is also a counter espionage aspect as one team has to secretly monitor the other teams messages.)

In practice this exercise can be a challenge to manage and if it is possible to separate to transmit and receive groups with a glass wall or windows far more learning will take place.

Running the exercise for 10 minutes then having a de-brief session to discuss the problems with the system will allow pupils to start to understand the logistical problems of communicating with such basic devices.

Compare and contrast with today's ability to talk anywhere in the world to almost anywhere else by simply dialling their number.

The teams can discuss how they would have to establish protocols so that messages be received safely. Remind them that these messages would be life and death for the people involved. Also that many senders had no way of receiving and had to hope that their messages were getting through. Finally discuss the problem of the messages being monitored and how the germans developed the enigma machine to encrypt their messages and how the enigma machine locked GCHQ out of the germans plans for a number of years until they finally cracked it by capturing and shipping from Germany of one of the machines.