Electrical CircuitsOver the course of the past 5 weeks, I have learned a great deal about electricity and electrical circuits. Coming into this unit, I
knew close to nothing on the topic. I am very happy that I learned so much about electricity. Considering the world that I live in today and the one that I will live in in the future, it is very important that I know as much about electricity as possible. Physics conceptsCircuit: a complete loop of conductive material with a power source Resistors: poor conductors that reduce voltage (ex: light bulbs) Voltage: power that electricity gives off, push/pull of electricity, pressure or Potential Energy difference Series circuits: draws less electricity because each additional bulb is extra resistance. Voltage changes, but current remains the same throughout. Parallel circuits: draws more electricity because as the number of bulbs increases, the resistance in turn goes down. Parallel circuits are independent, unless they're in series with another set of parallel circuits. Kirchoff's 1st Rule: "The total current out of a node equals the total current into the node." Breadboards: vertical rows are connected in the outermost columns on both the left and right side; in the center columns, horizontal rows are connected Ohm's Law: Voltage = Current x Resistance Resistors are banded with different colors to indicate the strength of the resistor. The code goes as follows. 0 Black 1 Brown 2 Red 3 Orange 4 Yellow 5 Green 6 Blue 7 Violet 8 Gray 9 White 0.1 (+/- 5%) Gold 0.01 (+/- 10%) Silver First band: 1st digit Second band: 2nd digit Third band: # of zeros Fourth band: tolerance (gold or silver) ReflectionI thought that this project went really well. We used the Arduino soft wear and kit to learn how electrical circuits and circuit
boards work, as well as coding. I really liked using this because the guide was very step-by-step and clear and gave me a good understanding of the processes. Before we were given the Arduino kits, we had very complicated packets which were supposed to help us learn about how electricity works, at first, reading that packet, I remember how overwhelmed I felt. It was like a foreign language to me. It is crazy how much my understanding has grown in such a short amount of time. I really cannot see myself pursuing a career involving electricity or coding/ programming, but this knowledge is still a useful tool for me to have. After we finished the Arduino assignment, we were asked to create robot art using programming and circuits. My partner Paige and I created a light show that worked to the beat of the song "Row Row Row Your Boat", while this song played in the background. To test our knowledge, we were then asked to create a 555 LED circuit. I had a lot of trouble with this at first, but with some help II was able to figure it out. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to learn about this complicatedly interesting topic. |
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