Lab: Dusk-to-Dawn Light (March 07, 2017)

Date: 03/07/2017

Dusk-to-Dawn Light

 This first part of today we determined that everything has resistance by passing a current through a hot dog. Given enough current we were able to cook the hot dog. On the board we determined what happened to the current over time, and we also did a thought experiment to see if the resistivity of a hot dog could handle the voltage for an LED.

 We continued to expand our understanding of Kirchhoff's law. In the example above we solved for the out put voltage across the 8 ohm resistor. The new concept is that the components are now in parallel to each other. Using loops learned in the previous class helps us solve for the voltage. The thing to keep in mind here is that there are two opposing currents for components in the middle of two applied loops. The out put voltage was 12 V.

 In this activity of the class we learn about voltage division. This is a handy tool when there is a voltage that in separated two resistors. since there can be no loss of voltage the sum of both voltage drops should add up to the original volatge source.

 This is an example of how and when the voltage division can be used.

 Here we analyze a circuit to get an understanding of how engineers approach a problem. If the necessary component that was calculated is not available, there is a safe range of components with similar values to choose from.

 This pre lab help us determine the necessary resistance we would be using in our circuit.

 This is the circuit for a night light built. Except that it was built in the opposite way. The light is bright when light is hitting the photocell. It should be the opposite.

 This is the proper working night light. As we cover the photocell the ligth gets bright.

 This is the output voltage across the photocell.

 Here we are using analog discovery for the first time.

This is the final circuit that worked like a night light should. It is dark when light hits. I was un able to load a video onto this blogger site.