Bobby

I am in a unique position of being a member of the Information Technology Committee of the UIUC Senate, as well as a voting member of the general body. I don't know of any pressing wireless policy issues on campus, but if we found something worth reforming, a potential project could be pushing binding policy legislation through the IT committee and then the UIUC Senate.  This would certainly constitute a service to our campus!  I will look into CITES Wireless, but let me know if you have any suggestions...

We present our project report in three parts, each being the unique perspective of a team member (the team consisting of Patrick, Joe, and Bobby).

Patrick:
It was decided that I would bring tacks, paper clips and a safety pin.  In this regard, I fell a bit short. I only could get my hands on tacks which, as it turned out, were not as helpful as we had hoped.  However, I was able to use my top-secret mechanical engineering clearance to get into the workshop at the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory.  There I was able to convince a couple fellas to help me "blue" our razor blade.  The actual act of "bluing" just means burning the hell out of it with a propane torch.  I knew that when metals are heated they tend to change chromatic properties but I do not quite know the effect this has on electrical conductivity.  It is supposedly necessary for the foxhole radio to operate properly, so we did it.  As far as the circuit building goes, we all kind of struggled through it with Bobby as our unspoken leader (grad student in EE, duh).  The construction of the radio itself was a nuisance for many reasons to be discussed.

Joe:
When first presented with the prospect of this bizarre learning experience, I was at a loss for what exactly I could bring to the table in such a technical experiment. However, with the power of three heads, we managed to find something for the Speech Communication major to do. After three days of ignoring e-mails from my group, and most likely agitating them, I found out that I was going to be responsible for bringing some old headphones and finding some magnet wire. This task did not turn out to be as daunting as first anticipated, since they were both readily available at your neighborhood friendly Radio Shack. The lady at the counter was very pleasant in assisting me in finding the proper type of wire. She looked at the picture online and found it in the store. I thought Radio Shack people need to know something about radios, but apparently not. When I returned from the store, Bobby had sent me an e-mail about needing a scrap piece of wood. So off I was to frat park on the way to class to try and locate this ever so crucial supply. Sure enough, on the corner of Second and Armory I found what I was looking for. Finally, we had all the materials we thought would make this project a success. However, as we soon learned the task at hand was not as simple as first presumed. Our radio did not turn out quite as expected, however I did fine tune my wire wrapping skills and got a little refreshment in the art of circuit building (haven't done Physics since junior year high school). Although our project was a bit of a failure, I felt that there was a good amount of information and experience that I could take away from attempting such a task. Most importantly this was the first step in the right direction for our class, and I am eager and excited about future projects knowing that this first one was not all that painful. Overall I would rate the experience an A.

Bobby:
Upon picking the Foxhole Radio as the best choice for our classroom project, I did a quick inventory of my home supplies.  I had some stainless steel razor blades, which probably would not rust over the course of the weekend, but fortunately Patrick's ME hookups solved that problem.  I also found a toilet paper roll and paper clips, and then I coordinated via email with the rest of the group to delegate the remaining supply acquisition.  I studied the radio schematics and the instructional video before class, so I would be prepared to put my EE skills to work.  However, without the comforts of a laboratory circuit-breadboard and an abundance of electrical supplies (from wire interconnects to alligator clamps), the radio construction was much harder than I ever imagined.  I was in charge of putting everything together (after Patrick prepared the makeshift diode and Joe prepared the makeshift inductor), and I was forced to used scotch tape to connect our wires.  Scotch tape.  This isn't exactly a safe or reliable way to wire a circuit, but I figured it would be acceptable since our circuit had no power supply to cause a fire.  Once the circuit was all connected (which involved stripping the wire coating off an earpiece), we heard nothing from the earpiece.  This leads to our list of possible causes for the radio's failure to operate:
1.  Wiring:  We used scotch tape instead of soldering or alligator clamps to connect wires.  There's a good possibility a couple of these connections were loose or had excessive impedance on current.
2.  Tuning:  The number of wire loops around the toilet paper roll (the makeshift inductor) determines the frequency we pick up from the airwaves.  We didn't have much flexibility in adjusting the number of loops once the circuit was connected, so it's possible that no radio transmissions were carried on our frequency.
3.  Volume:  The radio has no power source other than the airwaves it picks up from the antenna.  This might not be enough to drive the earpiece if we are not close enough to the source of transmission.  However, we tried connecting a AAA battery to the antenna to amplify the signal, which also produced no results.
4.  Antenna Range:  Our antenna was not near the window, so we probably should have built  our radio in a better location for signal reception.

That's a good question. Below is a list of reasons, organized under five categories.

Personal Connections: I once worked at KALX Berkeley, the campus radio station -- any relation to Radio Free Berkeley?  I am on the Illinois Student Senate and the student-faculty UIUC Senate (including the Information Technology Committee), so I have access to administrators and IT policy on campus. This committee can even recommend policy changes, which can be made binding by the general UIUC Senate...

Software: Matlab, Adobe Professional

Equipment: Wifi router, 5mpixel digital camera, 4-passenger car (not including driver), access to CSL CPU-cluster.

Skills: I am an Electrical Engineering grad student, so I have studied the theoretical details behind various radio transmission methods (but sadly I have very limited experience in building circuitry). I once took a class in Intellectual Property for technology. I am well versed in MATLAB and I am familiar with HTML and some programming languages (C, Java, etc), but it has been a while since I've programmed anything more advanced than MATLAB scripts.

Miscellanious: I will probably be in Washington, DC for spring break, so I might be able to meet with local advisers or visit government offices.