Morsibug: The Morse Machine

Introduction

Morsibug is an educational scientific project that aims to practice and learn Morse code so that students (or anyone) can improve some mental skills like abstract calculations and mental agility while playing.

The project uses two ESP8266 microcontrollers to communicate 2 boards (the Morsibugs) visually and audibly.  Each of the two Morsibug will play the role of Morse transmitters/receivers at the same time, allowing a bidirectional connection between them.

To communicate the Morsibugs without the need to be in the same space, the code uses WiFi and the MQTT protocol to establish bidirectional communication.

A couple of finished Morsibug devices

Required components

• ESP8266: any WiFi-enabled microcontroller compatible with the Arduino framework can be used for this project. In the case that you want to use the board designed for the Morsibug (you can download the Kicad files and gerbers) a WEMOS D1 Lite microcontroller must be used.
• LED + resistance: we will use an LED with 330-ohm resistance to show the transmitted message.
• Active buzzer: we will use an active buzzer to generate the tones related to the transmitted message.
• Button: we will use a push button to transmit the message.

The project can be assembled with your own components, but if you want to use the PCB designed for the Morsibug, you must use the exact components to be able to weld it properly.

Source code and PCB design

You can download the complete code (with the specific pinout for WEMOS D1 Lite) from Github.

You can also download the board design for Kicad from the same Github repository.