On December 12, we wrote a blog about the first trans-Atlantic radio transmission that was sent by Guglielmo Marconi. Well, at that time, Edwin Armstrong was only 11 years old and the idea of frequency modulation had not yet come to be.

Edwin Armstrong is considered to be one of the great engineers of the 20^th century and was born in New York City in 1890. At a young age, Armstrong became extremely interested in studying radio and building homemade wireless equipment.

Most inventors are always looking for a solution to a problem. The problem at hand for Armstrong was that a device did not exist that could amplify weak signals at the receiving end of a communications transmission. Additionally, there wasn’t a way to provide stronger power at the sending end.

So, Armstrong spent his time finding a solution to the problem as he pursued his wireless studies further at Columbia University’s school of engineering.

After three years at Columbia, Armstrong created his first major invention, the first radio amplifier. He had discovered how Lee DeForest’s radio tube worked and he then redesigned that invention by taking the electromagnetic waves that came from a radio transmission and repeatedly fed the signal back through the tube. Each time Armstrong did this, the signal power would increase as much as 20,000 times a second! This process became known as “regeneration” and proved to be a very important discovery in the early days of radio.

With Armstrong’s first invention, radio engineers no longer needed 20-ton generators to get their stations on the air. Rather, his single-circuit design offered the key to the continuous-wave transmitter that is at the core of our radio operations today.  In 1914, he patented his invention and licensed it to the Marconi Corporation.

As time went on, Armstrong was sent to Paris to serve in World War I and this is where he created his second major invention, the superheterodyne receiver (now, that’s a mouthful!) This invention was spun out of a project that he was assigned to, in order to find a ‘Better Way’ to improve the ability to intercept shortwave enemy communication. In 1920, Westinghouse bought his patent for the receiver and started up the nation’s first radio station, KDKA, in Davison’s home city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania!

However, Armstrong is best known for his idea and invention of frequency-modulated or FM radio in 1933. His invention of wide-band frequency modulations, or FM, improved the audio signals of radio by controlling the noise static that was caused by electrical equipment and, naturally, by the earth’s atmosphere. To take his invention further, Armstrong received U.S. Patent 1,342,885 for a ‘Method of Receiving High-Frequency Oscillations Radio’ for his FM technology.  This new invention allowed a single carrier wave to transmit two radio programs at once, otherwise known as “multiplexing.”

In 1940, he received a permit for the first FM station that was established in Alpine, New Jersey. By the late 1960s, FM was known as the superior radio system and, now, is even used in earth-to-space communication.

To this day, every radio or television uses one or more of the inventions that were created by Edwin Armstrong, otherwise known as the “father of FM radio!”

Copyright Davison 2013

Sources:

http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventors/a/Armstrong.htm

https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/edwin-armstrong

Images:

http://blog.amplifier.com/post/34104624549/100yearsofedwinarmstrongsregenerativecircuit

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Spring2002/Armstrong.html

The post The Father of FM Radio: Edwin Armstrong appeared first on Davison.

Science, technology, engineering and math (S.T.E.M.) were at the forefront of the Invention Convention and these categories are spreading like wildfire in the minds of young kids across the country.

With the holidays right around the corner, GoldieBlox, a company that is devoted to building games for girls in the hopes of inspiring future engineers, is hitting the market at full force!

As you can see, the engineering world is predominately made up of men; GoldieBlox took this statistic and ran with it by dedicating their products to encouraging young girls to build and, as they say, “help to level the playing field in every sense of the phrase.” Additionally, GoldieBlox taps into a girl’s strong verbal skills and pairs their story with the construction sets, in an effort to boost confidence in spatial skills that, in turn, will give young inventors the tools that they need to build and create amazing things!

Speaking of amazing things, if you haven’t done so already, check out GoldieBlox’s viral video!

These three creative and inventive little girls on a mission to break the mold were also featured on Buzzfeed!

Copyright Davison 2013

Sources:

http://www.goldieblox.com/pages/about

Media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFpe3Up9T_g

The post Creativity is “S.T.E.M.”ming From Our Youth appeared first on Davison.

“You watch too much TV!”

We all grew up hearing authority figures and parents scold us for inactivity. Well, Nigeria is doing something about their entertainment-obsessed youths.

According to a recent article posted on The Guardian online, “Over 75 percent of Nigerian children now spend most of their time watching movies …”

So Lagos – the most populated city in Nigeria at nearly 8 million – partnered with Kids Invent! — the world’s leading provider of innovation-based kids science activities that stimulate the creative interests and abilities of children ages 7 to 15. According to the article, around 300 kids participated in the invention programs, which consisted of a 5-day camp where children were encouraged to invent toys and even price their inventions for the market.

“There is a huge gap in the kids in our country today, but with this trademark program, we can tap into the lives of every innovative and creative children,” Emma Okoro – managing director of the group – told The Guardian.

Co-creator and Group Managing Director of Kids Invent!, Prof. Ed Sobey argues that kids learn best when they are creatively engaged. He noted that Kids Invent! activities are appropriate for schools, after school programs, home schools, summer camps, museums, and wherever kids are eager to experience hands-on, innovative learning.

Kids Invent! was created by Professors Ed Sobey and Timothy M. Stearns, who developed the first Kids Invent! summer camp as an outreach program for California State University in Fresno.

Davison applauds all activities that promote education and get children off the couch and creating! Here’s to hoping that more countries, including the United States, realize the importance of early education in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields.

(Recently, a group of students visited Inventionland as a project aimed to garner interest in STEM. Read about it here.)

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