Circuit Inquiry (Semester II)
If you hadn't noticed that in every project that has involved building something, I've done something with electricity, I should tell you that now. A lot of the projects I do at home involve a bit of wiring, so this was finally my chance to do what I do at home for an academic grade.
We started directly from the beginning, hooking up light bulbs to batteries and seeing what would happen. Upon seeing that the light bulbs lit up, we moved on to some of the theory behind circuits and electricity. What we learned, I have listed below, for your convenience.
We started directly from the beginning, hooking up light bulbs to batteries and seeing what would happen. Upon seeing that the light bulbs lit up, we moved on to some of the theory behind circuits and electricity. What we learned, I have listed below, for your convenience.
Circuit- a loop of conductive material spanning from the negative pole of a power source to the positive
voltage- potential energy produced by a power scource
amperage- amount of power in system (remains constant throughout circuit)
resistor- material that inhibits electricity
conductor- material that allows electricity to flow through it.
Ohms Law- V=IR (voltage = current X resistance)
________________Some other terms I might might refer to_____________________________
PCB- Printed Circuit Board (that shiny green thing that components are soldered to)
Solder- soft metal that is melted to a PCB to fasten components to it (almost like welding)
Multimeter- device used to measure resistance, voltage, etc.
LED- Light Emitting Diode (just a diode that emits light)
Breadboard- basically a PCB that requires no solder and can be used multiple times
#@$%- that horrible feeling that occurs upon seeing smoke rising from your circuit (generally a really bad thing)
voltage- potential energy produced by a power scource
amperage- amount of power in system (remains constant throughout circuit)
resistor- material that inhibits electricity
conductor- material that allows electricity to flow through it.
Ohms Law- V=IR (voltage = current X resistance)
________________Some other terms I might might refer to_____________________________
PCB- Printed Circuit Board (that shiny green thing that components are soldered to)
Solder- soft metal that is melted to a PCB to fasten components to it (almost like welding)
Multimeter- device used to measure resistance, voltage, etc.
LED- Light Emitting Diode (just a diode that emits light)
Breadboard- basically a PCB that requires no solder and can be used multiple times
#@$%- that horrible feeling that occurs upon seeing smoke rising from your circuit (generally a really bad thing)
I really do like working with electronics, but a classroom is completely different than my workshop. For one, everything must be justified so I have to convey why something works, instead of just knowing that it does. For most subjects, this may be rather easy, but in the world of circuits and PCBs, this harder than it sounds. Imagine having the entire English language in your head, but not speaking a word of in until 7 years after you learned it. Other than the Academic aspect of it, I greatly enjoyed working with my group. Everyone caught on really fast, allowing us to finish the entire experiment packet in a matter of days. With the time we had left, we branched out and did some extra projects of our own, mostly experimenting with more complicated circuits or trying to replicate other electronic projects from PCB's on a breadboard. Of course these extra projects were in correlation with building a miniature jet turbine. More than this, I will not say so I don't get suspended.