Lab 1: Basic Electronics
This lab is an introduction to basic electronics and simple circuits. You will learn how electricity flows through components and will practice calculating resistor values based on the power source and components in your circuit. You will learn about conductive materials and will craft a custom switch.
Part 1: LEDs in Series and Parallel
This is the schematic drawing for the series circuit. The circuit takes in the power source, and transforms the amount of power from 9V to 5V through the use of a regulator. After the regulator comes the switch and then the resistors, and finally the two LED's, one coming right after the other in the circuit.
After figuring out how to power the board as well as use the regulator correctly, I had to figure out how much resistance my circuit would need for my two LED's in a series.
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My LED's are blue and are 3.4V with 20mA
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I know that V = IR, and after some rearranging,
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R = (Vstart - (VLEDS*#of LEDs) / I LEDS
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R = (5V-3.4V*2)/ .02
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R = -90 Ohms
Since there is no opposition, I believe that any resistor would have no effect on the circuit, but I still used a 100 Ohm resistor and the circuit still worked
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This is my schematic drawing for the parallel circuit. It is fairly similar to my series circuit drawing, but this time the LED's are in parallel, which means that they each have their own resistor. So after the switch, the circuit breaks off into two so that there are two resistors, each with a LED to follow.
After figuring out the series circuit, the parallel circuit was fairly easy to figure out once I had done the math.
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My LED's are blue and are 3.4V with 20mA
​
I know that V = IR, and after some rearranging,
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R = (Vstart - (VLEDS) / I LEDS * # of LEDs
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R = (5V-3.4V)/ .02 * 2
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R = 40 Ohms
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Part 2: DIY Switch
The DIY switch was cool to come up with. The first conductive material that I chose wasn't working for some reason, so I had to scrap that switch and choose a different fabric.
This is a piece of the conductive material that I ended up using for my DIY Switch
I used the sandwich technique, so I started off with one layer of cardboard, then a layer of my fabric (with a bit of it sticking out of the end), then a couple pieces of cardboard with a hole cut into it, then the second piece of fabric, and finally the top layer of cardboard.
Then I took my two wires and connected them to both ends of the conductive fabric by using tape, and then finally completed the circuit by removing my switch and implementing my DIY switch.
This is my DIY switch in action. One problem I had with it was that I put too many layers of cardboard in between the conductive layer, so when it came to pressing the pieces together, I had to push extremely hard. So, I went back in and took out a layer of cardboard, and that seemed to help a lot.
Part 3: Creative Enclosure
I wasn't sure what kind of enclosure I was going to make. The first thing I needed to find was a box for my breadboard to sit in. I found a granola bar box and used that. Then I cut out the shape of a butterfly on the one side, and covered the entire thing with paper.
I next cut a hole through the box and the paper so that my switch could be exposed. Since I was going with the design of a butterfly, I decided to make the switch a flower. Obviously, when you squeeze the flower, the blue LED's turn on and the shape of a blue butterfly appears against the paper.
