Materials: LED lights, scotch tape, copper tape, and coin batteries.
Today the Maker's had the opportunity to learn how to create a simple circuit. The project introduces basic electronic concepts such as conductivity, electrical polarity, and series vs parallel circuits.
The excitement the children had in helping each other troubleshoot and share their discoveries was a great teamwork development experience. As they were troubleshooting their circuits each was able to discover and learn various techniques to make their circuits work.
Discoveries included the Makers finding out only one side of the copper tape was conductive, another discovered the LED lights had polarity and would only work when matching the correct polarity with the battery, another discovered how to test their battery and make sure their power source was working.
As the children worked on their circuits they were practicing and learning how to problem solve how to make their circuit work.
Part 2
Using the skills they had learned to make a circuit the Makers were then challenged with creating a circuit inside a greeting card. The difficulty of this project included having to figure out a way to close the loop of their circuit only when their card was closed. A few of the Makers took extra time to figure out how to make LED's lights run in series for their card.
Part 3
Materials: Craft Sticks, various plastic recyclables, glue, tape, styrafoam paper, LED's, copper tape, various materials.
Using the skills the Makers learned from making circuits inside the greeting cards, they were given freedom to create using a variety of materials anything they would like as long as they added a circuit with LED lights to it.
A new technique taught today was how to make and add a switch for their circuit.