In this project, I had to create a house with at least four working electrical circuits. The circuits had to be of different types like series, parallel, and combination as well as have a certain amount of lights and switches depending on the complexity of the circuit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Electric House Project Questions 

1. You have three lights bulbs. All have the same intensity when lit. Explain how you can prove to a classmate that they are connected in series by unscrewing one light bulb. Support your answer. 

In a series circuit, there’s only one pathway for the electrons to follow so if one lightbulb is unscrewed, the electrons won’t flow and the rest of the lights won’t light up, proving it’s in series. 

 2. You have three light bulbs. All have the same intensity when lit. Explain how you can prove to a classmate that they are connected in parallel by unscrewing one light bulb. 

In a parallel circuit, there’s multiple pathways for the electrons to follow so if one lightbulb is unscrewed, the electrons have other paths to follow so the other lights will still light up. 

Note: you may need to play around with practice circuits to determine the answers for #3 and #4. You can do this using real circuits or the PhET Circuit Builder.  

3. You have three light bulbs. Two are connected in parallel. This parallel combination is connected in series with the third light bulb. Describe the relative intensity of each bulb. Support your answer. 

The lightbulb in the series part of the circuit is brighter than the two in the parallel combination. This is because the current must be diverted into two pathways for the parallel part, resulting in a slower flow and less voltage going through the loads. 

 4. In Question 3, describe the relative intensities of the two remaining lit bulbs if one of the bulbs in parallel was unscrewed. Support your answer. 

The two remaining lit bulbs have the same brightness with the other lightbulb unscrewed. This is because the unscrewed lightbulb stops the flow of one of the branches of the parallel circuit turning it into a series circuit, which distributes the voltage equally. 

5. Outline a step-by-step method that could be used to determine the resistance of the light bulbs in one of your circuits. Feel free to include a circuit diagram of your set-up. 

First, you measure the voltage of the lightbulb by hooking it up to a voltmeter. Next you measure the current in the circuit by hooking it up to an ammeter. Then, once you know the total voltage and current, you can figure out the resistance of the lightbulb with Ohm’s Law, which is V = I x R.

 6. Using your method outlined in Question 5, determine the resistance of the bulbs in one of your circuits.  

The amount of volts my circuit had was 4.5 V. The amount of amps my circuit had was 0.45 A. 4.5 divided by 0.45 is 10, which means that the lightbulbs in my circuit have a resistance of 10 Ohms.

Solution Fluency

1) Define a problem: Some of our circuits weren’t close to the table so it was difficult to connect the battery to the circuit. This made it annoying to test the circuits because one of us had to hold the battery in place while the other had to check to see if the lights on the other side lit up. The battery was also easy to knock over and when we tried taping the battery to the cardboard, it kept slipping and falling down.

2) Dream possible solutions: To fix the battery problem, we began to brainstorm ways to have the battery attached to the cardboard that allowed us to connect it to the circuit better. Some of my initial ideas were to use a hook or hoop to keep the battery in place but we figured that it likely would be too flimsy. That led us to the idea of a more secure solution of a battery holder, which was a container for it to slide in.

3) Deliver a solution: I designed the battery holder in Tinkercad by measuring the sides of the 9 volt battery in the website. Then, I used cubes and changed them so that they were the right length and width, making sure there was some wiggle room for the battery to slide in. After, I had it 3d printed, which took 2 hours, but it made testing and troubleshooting the circuits a lot easier.

4) Debrief the quality: While the battery holder did do its job effectively, I feel like I could have made one that was more sophisticated and taken more risks as its design was pretty simple and made with the constraints of the time I had. I think that if I did this again, I would keep the overall shape of the battery holder but combine some of my earlier ideas with hoops for the wires to keep them in place. This would make for a more exciting design and would’ve helped even more with the circuits.

Core Competency Reflection

In this project, I used critical thinking to create the circuits as I had to develop and design the circuits in my house that fit the criteria and my rooms. After creating the circuits, I had to make sure the circuits worked, and the lights lit up as well as be able to be turned on and off with the switches. With all the different parts, this didn’t happen right away, and I had to analyze and investigate the problems to see if I could fix them and get the circuit working. Another competency I used was personal awareness and responsibility. All the troubleshooting required from the project had me use self-determination and self-regulation a lot. A few times I had to spend over half an hour trying to get a circuit working but I kept on working on it and persevered, which paid off. I also tried to self-regulate myself by giving myself breaks or switching to another circuit after working on one for a long period. This helped me from getting too frustrated, although when I did, I tried to use that energy to keep working on the project.