sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information how do phones actually work?

I have been asked to participate in a career day at the local grade school. Inevitably, some kid is going to ask me "exactly how does a phone work?".
I need to come up with a simple to understand answer to that question, and I am curious how you guys would answer.

These are pretty young kids. The old phone fairy explanation - it's all magic - you're too young to understand - should just about cover it. If not, tell them "we'll get tech support on the line". That shoud make it all perfectly clear. IF not, just tell them the truth "nobody really knows !!!". Kids respect honesty. :rofl:

:rofl:

If you want a simple explanation, use "energy". Sound, Mechanical, Electrical. From these basic elements you can draw parallels that a young one can understand. Basic voice. They all understand computers and a computer has a processor. The CO equals a processor if you want to go that far!!

Quite a few years ago I did the same thing in my youngest sons class (I think it was 1st or 2nd grade) I got a board mounted 4 jacks that were hooked up to a Melco intercom box, (and called it the CO, and the wires from the Melco to the the jacks were the outside telephone wires and the jacks were in their house) hooked up 4 2500 sets with buzzers in them and had them call each other. (I had a power supply that was either a transformer or a 1A2 PS, I don't remember, it was quite a while ago, but I'm almost sure I needed something to power it)They loved it and it was a good visual. Good luck

That's a tough one because in this day and age, kids are so accustomed to cordless phones and cell phones that traditional "wired" phones are hardly even thought of. I'll bet most of them have never even seen a 2500 set, or better yet, a rotary-dial phone!

My 15 year old son asked me to bring him home a rotary set to use in his room. He thought it was "cool". That lasted about a week with all of the "972" and "786" numbers on his buddy list. Oh, and we have a system at home, so he also had to dial "9".

Wow, I wouldn't begin to know where to start with that project!

I got a bit of a break. It is more of technology class, so I can do both phones and computers. Think I will avoid getting to indept about the actual mechanics of it.

We take care of the "Phone Display" at a Kid's museum called The Discovery Center. For litle kids (2-6) we have six red s/l wall phones hooked up to a (I think) Melco K-10 with a power supply. We really haven't done anything to the equipment in the closet for 10 years or more. The only thing we have serviced are mainly the handsets & hookswitches. When you dial # and the number of the other phone--it rings and when picked up--you can talk to that person on the other end. These phones are spread all over this display--on different levels and the area also has different water and "physics-type" stuff for kids.

I think test-ok's idea is awesome, set up a demo, great stuff. Kids love interactivity. If you set that up I bet you'd have the most popular and talked about presentation of all.