by

Binary Bunting Flags – ‘write’ your name’s initial letter in binary ^JB

We thought you might like to make some computing-themed bunting based on binary representations of letters – specifically the first letter of your name, in bunting flags. What with 2022 being the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee we will probably be seeing rather a lot of bunting* this year, might as well join the fun :)

The letter ‘J’ in binary

Materials

You can print our ready-made flags below or just create your own. All you need is a triangle as the face of whatever you want on your flag, but don’t forget to add a little ‘flap‘ at the top which will fold over the string or thread (you can glue or sellotape it to stop it sliding around).

If you print ours you’ll need a printer, paper, scissors, glue / sellotape and some thread, string or ribbon.
If you make your own you’ll need everything above minus the printer but plus pencils / pens.

The alphabet, in binary

A table showing the binary code in 8 bit for each capital letter, A to Z. E is 01000101 and T is 01010100. A fuller range of lower case letters and numbers can be found at ScienceFriday.

Each person will need 8 flags per letter with the number of 1s and 0s depending on the initial of their first name or nickname. I’m Jo so I’d need three flags with 1 on and five with 0 on them. I’d also need to put them in the right order to ‘spell’ the letter J – 01001010. For example I could also spell the letters L or Q with the same flags by rearranging the order. There will be other ‘binary buddies’ where the same eight flags could spell more than one letter.

Don’t forget that binary 1s and 0s can be represented by any pair of things, so you could different colours (red and black bunting, or maybe blue and yellow) or different shapes (triangle and square bunting), or anything you like!

 

Printable Binary Bunting flags

The .pptx files below were created on a Mac computer and are editable. In case they appear differently on Windows computers I’ve added a PDF copy as well.

  1. Blank bunting flags, 3 to an A4 sheet (PDF)
  2. Binary bunting flags (half with 0 on, half with 1 on), 3 to an A4 sheet (PDF)
  3. Binary bunting midi flags (half with 0, half with 1), 6 to an A4 sheet (PDF)
  4. Binary bunting mini flags (50% 0, 50% 1), 10 to an A4 page (PDF)
  5. Raw .svg file of blank bunting flag (you can use a free program like Inkscape to edit this, or any vector-graphics editing program).

 

*small flags, usually fabric, strung together as a decoration