This is my electric house project created in Science 9 2022. It is a functional electric house, created with 7 distinct rooms. This house includes series circuits, parallel circuits, and combined circuits. We used our creativity to create a fun and colourful house… and we hope you enjoy it.
Question #1: You have three light bulbs that all have the same intensity when lit. Explain how you can prove to a classmate that they are are connected in a series by unscrewing one light bulb. Support you answer…
If you were to do a series circuit, they are all connected in one loop. A series circuit will only function if they are all in one loop, if something disconnects, the source will be unable to function. A light bulb is also known as a source, so if you were to un-screw the light bulb in a series circuit, we wouldn’t have a complete loop and the other lights would then turn off.
Question #2: You have three light bulbs that all have the same intensity when lit. Explain how you can prove to a classmate that they are connected in parallel by unscrewing one of the light bulbs. Support your answer.
If you were to do a parallel circuit, each source has its own separate path of flow. This means that you can have two or more paths, where each one can have a different light. In a parallel circuit, you can edit specific details about each path. One of these examples could be turning off one of the source (the light bulb). You would do this by unscrewing the light. If you were to show this to someone, only one of the lights would turn off, and the others would remain on. This is unlike the series circuit because when you unscrew one they all turn off.
Question #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 intensity of the lightbulb all depends on what circuit they are in. The series and parallel are technically in different paths even though they are in the same circuit. So, the intensity of the light bulbs will vary. The series will shine brighter with less bulbs, and lower with more bulbs. The parallel, will remain consistent or change depending on the path, as they both have their very own paths, the intensity can change quite often, specializing on what you want it to be.
Question #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.
The intensity of the lightbulbs would rise, as there are less sources for the battery and electrons to flow through. When we add more bulbs, there are more sources to fill up, meaning that the intensity of the bulb lowers and lowers the more you add to your circuit.
Solution Fluency
- DEFINE: Explain the problem you are hoping to address in your own words.
The electric house that we created is created by using wires, sources, switches, and batteries. When we assemble all of our circuits and arrange them into our house, it becomes a bit complicated. The wires are confusing, the circuits are being mixed up, but what we realized the problem was, is that we had no battery holder.
- DREAM: Generate ideas (Creative Thinking) and share possible solutions to the problem. Put a list of your solutions in your post.
Because our house is a generally high height, I would love to have something that makes it so we don’t have to hold up our battery in order to work the circuits. Some of the ideas that could solve this, is a battery holder. Something that could attach to the back of the house, and hold the battery. This would make everything a lot simpler, because we could re-arrange the wires to sit in the battery holder, where it would connect to the battery.
- DELIVER: Propose one answer to the problem on which you choose to focus. Share as much detail you can about your idea. Include diagrams, pictures, video.
The final printed solution that I have chose to create, is a battery holder. This battery holder will essentially be a rectangle that is held by walls. You could then insert the battery into the rectangle, that is then hot glued to the backside of the electric house. For additional help, we will create holes on one of the rectangle walls, that you could insert the wires into. This will help with the organization progress of the house, to insure that presentation day goes the best as possible.
- DEBRIEF: Reflect on the process and tell me what you did well and what you could improve on.
The overall process of creating the 3D printed item went pretty well, however we did have our strengths and our difficulties…
Strengths – The rectangle. When we were creating the rectangle to hold the battery, we were able to measure precisely so that the battery fit into the rectangle. We then inserted the measurements into the 3D printing app, and where able to 3D print the item. Because this worked so well, we decided to print 5 of these battery holder, which had one for each of the electric circuits.
Difficulties – The wire holes. When we were creating the wire holes for the battery holder, we thought we correctly measured the sizing of the wires. So we then inserted that into the 3D print design. However when we then printed the item, we found that the holes were much smaller than expected. When we found this out, the wires were not able to fit into the holes. However, we were able to problem solve, and link the wires into the holes, and tape it down. So when we presented our project, we were still really organized. If we were to recreate the 3D printed item, I would choose to remeasure the size of the wires, and create them larger then measures, to ensure we can fit the wires into the holes.