Intro to the Project

For Physics this year, we were asked to create a cardboard house on our own, or with a partner. We were asked to make it our own, decorate it however we wanted, and make it into cool shapes. One of our classmates made an airplane, and another made a castle. We had access to lots of tools to personalize it and make it work. We were also asked to find a problem and fix it using a 3D printer. It could be anything from a clip to hold up a wall, to something to make your wires all neat. However, arguably the most important part of the project was that we had to wire the house. You see, our house needed a minimum of four rooms, and that was because we needed four circuits in our house. We got to design and fiddle with a series circuit, a parallel circuit, a combination circuit, and a circuit of our choice, making it as complicated or as uncomplicated as we wanted. After designing our circuits we were then asked to find the tools we needed to create our circuits and were put to work. The final products were amazing and very organized. To finish the project, we answered questions, took pictures, created the blog, and did a reflection. Overall, a pretty interesting project. 

Dareen and I came up with the following circuit designs (It’ a PDF I’m not very techy so I could’nt figure out how make a PDF embeded if that’ an actual thing.):
Circuit Design

And here are the circuits coming to life.

Project Questions:

1. 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 series by unscrewing one light bulb. Support your answer.

Response: If you were to unscrew a light bulb in a series circuit, the other lights would not light. That is because in a series circuit there is only one path and if one is unscrewed, the one path is now opened into an open circuit. It’s like trying to tie your hair back with a strand of elastic. It wouldn’t work unless you tie the sides together to make a complete loop. 

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.

Response: If you were to unscrew a light bulb in a parallel circuit, the lights would continue to shine. That is because parallel circuits have multiple paths for the electrons to flow through, meaning there are multiple paths for the electrons to get from point a to point b. 

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 light bulb in the series shines brighter than the two in parallel. That’s because there is more light in the parallel part so there are more paths. By the time the electrons hit the series, it’s at full capacity. I also feel that might depend on where the battery is placed because I know that the parallel circuit is supposed to be brighter. I made sure to check my ideas on the website given to us, and the results above are what came out of it. 

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

If one of the parallels were unscrewed, the two remaining lights would have the same brightness. I made sure to make check my ideas on the website given as I said above, and that is what the diagram showed. I believe that makes the most sense though since that would mean that the parallel circuit would be getting the same amount of energy as the one in series. 

Solution Fluency Reflection Questions 

Define: Explain the problem you’re hoping to address.

We found that, due to the weight of the extra cardboard we used to create a deck on our house, our house looked as though it was tipped forward. We wanted a deck for the house to make it different from the rest, so removing the deck wasn’t an option. So now we were left with the fact that if anyone stood in our house, they would be standing on an incline.

Dream: Generate ideas and share possible solutions to the problem.

We had four ideas before we started our 3D print. We figured we could just remove the deck, but then we wouldn’t have anything to print. Then, we figured we could make walls on either side of the deck so then it would be level. If we did that though, it would defeat the purpose of the deck and we wouldn’t necessarily need to print anything. Then we thought we could create a weight, some type of 3D print that would be heavy enough to level it out, but also small enough or compact enough to not disturb the rest of the house. That would be nearly impossible though. Lastly, we figured columns or poles of some sort to hold the front up. We weren’t sure how to create the columns, what size to make them, how wide they should’ve been, or what design we were going to come up with, so there was still a lot to debate.

Deliver: Propose one answer to the problem on which you choose to focus.

From the list of options we had above, I’d say it’s pretty clear which one we chose. We chose to focus on creating columns to add to the front of our house to help the tilt that was created by the overwhelming weight of the deck. We decided that a long cylinder with a cubed base would work the best, with the cubed base so that it would stand stronger and more sturdy. I believe they measured about 15cm which we found to be a lot of millimeters. Our columns stand at the front of the house on the two corners of the deck. 

Debrief: Reflect on the process.

I think that Dareen and I did a good job at finding a solution to our problem and coming up with a design. I’d say that we could’ve done a better job with making our design a bit better, like making the base a bit bigger to make it more sturdy. We also found that the plastic melted when we tried hot gluing it to our structure and had to reglue it with different types of glue. I don’t think we could’ve done a whole lot about that though, because it wasn’t exactly our fault, however, I’d like to keep it in mind for the next time we 3D print. 

Core Competency Self-Reflection

 

The project a nothing like I’ve ever done before, and I enjoyed being able to play around with different tools. I think Dareen and I did a fairly good job, and without further ado, here is the finale. Ladies and gents, here you go. Oh also, the special guests are One Direction, and Zayn is beside the chimney in the second because he left the band. Dareen’s hand is also featured. 

Thank you for reading my blog. I wrote a lot, I know. I think it has something to do with re-watching “Anne With an E”.