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Documents The Learning Circuit 01: Circuit Basics with Cardboard Circuits
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Author: tariq.ahmad
Date Created: 30 Oct 2017 8:28 PM
Last Updated: 4 Mar 2020 6:31 PM
Views: 2087
Likes: 15
Comments: 15
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The Learning Circuit 01: Circuit Basics with Cardboard Circuits

element14's The Ben Heck Show

Join Karen as she shares her enthusiasm for teaching STEM subjects, gives you what you need to know to get started on electronics projects, and more.

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The Learning Circuit
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Karen shows you how to make learning fun by taking some common everyday items and using them to make a simple circuit.  This project can be adapted based on what you have lying around and will provide you with a hands on demonstration of how circuits work. While showing you how to make a circuit that gives you light she goes over open and closed circuits, switches, incandescent vs LED lighting, and what to check for if it doesn't work.

 

 

Download the Introduction to Circuits featuring Karen in eBooks!

 

If you've never created a circuit before then this is a great project to get started. All you need to make a basic circuit is some common materials and components. A circuit is a closed path through which an electric current can flow. A circuit can be closed or open. If the circuit is closed, all of the components are connected and the electrical current can flow. If the circuit is open, then the connection is broken and the electrical current cannot flow. Circuits are used to send energy to turn things on like the motor in a drill or a bulb in a flashlight. A lot of things you use everyday contain circuits and circuit boards.  A circuit board contains lots of little circuits that each have their own individual function.  One circuit might turn on a motor while another circuit might make a buzzer beep. You can make a simple circuit out of just a light bulb, a power source, and some wires.  To make this circuit, you’ll need some cardboard, some paper clips, some paper fasteners, a battery, some tape, and a light. It’s also useful to have a pair of needlenose pliers and a utility knife.

 

Circuits typically use wires and circuit traces to send electricity and signals along the circuit. In place of wires she uses paper clips and paper fasteners.  If you're going to do the same thing, it’s important to make sure that these items are metal and don’t have any coating. They need to be conductive so that electricity flows through them wherever they touch. For this project, a battery is used as the power source. Batteries have a positive and a negative terminal. Some components only work in one direction, so it’s important to note which orientation your battery is being hooked up.  This battery supplies 1.5 volts of power.  When choosing a light, you want to make sure you use one that is rated for low voltage. If the light is rated for 2 to 3 volts it should still work with one battery. First, Karen tapes down her battery.  She adds a paper clip to either side to act as the wires to conduct the electricity, as well as, acting as clips to help hold the battery in place.  She’ll use a pair of needlenose pliers to bend it in half, then put it right against the battery, and push a fastener right at the other end to help hold it snugly in place. Next, they’re going to add their light. The length of the paper clips is going to determine where this is going to go and if you need to you can add extra paper clips and fasteners to make sure that it reaches. She makes a loop of tape to put on the bottom of her light. Make sure that the screws of the light are facing out towards your paper clips so that it’s easy to reach. . She makes a loop of tape to put on the bottom of her light.  With the last paperclips, loop around the screws of the light socket and then connect the ends over to your other paper clips and secure them with a fastener. If you have everything hooked up correctly your light should be on.  If your light is not on then check all of your connections, make sure metal stays touching metal when not being held, make sure you are using a fresh battery, check inside the bulb, and make sure your bulb is screwed all the way in.  Karen gives her method for battery testing without tools and suggests making sure the filament inside the bulb is not broken.  If the filament is broken then it turns this into an open circuit because electricity cannot flow across it.

 

For this project, Karen prefers to use incandescent bulbs because they are less sensitive to voltages. She also goes over what you need to look for in LEDs if you want to use those for this project. Karen gives you what you need to know if you want to use LEDs for this project instead.  LEDs come in different sizes such as a 3 millimeter, a 5 millimeter, and a 10 millimeter LED. LEDs are more sensitive to voltages than incandescent bulbs. With incandescent bulbs, orientation in the circuit doesn’t matter. LED stands for light emitting diode.  A diode is an electrical component that only lets electricity flow through it in one direction. An LED will not work if it is hooked up backwards. You can identify the negative side of an LED a few different ways.  Usually the negative lead is shorter, and if you look inside the LED the larger side is the negative side. The last thing Karen shows you is how to make a switch with your circuit. You can loosen one of the paper clips so that it just touches the top of the fastener.  This allows it to swivel and easily open and close to become a switch, open and closing the circuit. A line and circle on some switches represents a closed or an open circuit. When the switch is positioned to the o side that represents an open circuit and its off. When the switch is positioned to the line side that represents a closed circuit and the switch is on.

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Top Comments

  • awhit003
    awhit003 over 4 years ago +5

    Thank you for this series. I've been watching the show for years, but I am not an engineer. Now maybe I'll be able to build something that actually works.

  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 4 years ago +4

    A long time ago I recall a school using fibreboard/pinboard along with countersunk head wood screws and cup washers as low-cost circuit board. You trapped the wire/paperclip under the cup washer and tightened…

  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 4 years ago in reply to makerkaren +4

    This was an after school program led by one of the Physics teachers who was into electronics and the early microcomputers at the time. He often used his 'BBC micro' computer to spice up various Physics…

  • magiotcz
    magiotcz over 3 years ago

    Great video for beginners who do not have the electrical circuit experience.

    Interesting information on how quickly the battery capacity detects its impact on a hard surface: D

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  • valerius68
    valerius68 over 3 years ago

    Very good teachers. Nice lessons.

    Thank you !

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  • radcliffkaty1
    radcliffkaty1 over 4 years ago

    Yes, this is interesting to find such a great list of tutorials for learning the circuit.

    Good Work!!!

    Keep Posting.

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  • gam3t3ch
    gam3t3ch over 4 years ago

    Great job Karen keep it up!

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  • jimfrem99
    jimfrem99 over 4 years ago in reply to makerkaren

    makerkaren

    Hello Karen & "TBHS" Team! Max, Felix, and of course Ben!

    My favorite parts of the builds are the "Explaining" things, and some parts
    are not covered fully, and would be nice to have some further explanation
    to some of them. (No examples right now.)

    I liked it when Felix & Ben would explain things using the WhiteBoard examples!

    (I liked when You and Max used "B" roll illustrations with this "Circuit Basics")

    I don't really need to know the "Why" of things, just simply "How To", and
    "How does 'xyz' circuit / software" work. I have been a Tinkerer/Maker/Builder
    since the Mid 1970's.

    I enjoy the show, and I continue to learn lots from everyone!

    (I am following/watching Sudo Seargent Felix as well!)

     

    Thanks to Element14 and The Ben Heck Show TEAM!


    Keep up the Great Work!

    Kind Regards - Jim F - Calgary Alberta Canada

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 4 years ago in reply to makerkaren

    perhaps a use for the auto tracking camera mount that Ben put together in episode 173/174 ? 

     

    For those that missed it:

    Episode 173: Ben Heck’s Auto Tracking Camera Part 1 Episode

    Episode 174: Ben Heck’s Auto Tracking Camera Part 2 Episode

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  • makerkaren
    makerkaren over 4 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    That's a really great input. Max and I are our camera operators, so with us in front of the camera, it wasn't really feasible to get footage of what we were doing other than the static shots we featured in the episode. I agree that would be useful supplemental material to the episode. I'll see what we can do about putting something together with that information in the future. In the meantime, I know Ben has done an SMD soldering episode before. It could be worth checking out for tips. Episode 119: Ben Heck's Surface Mount Soldering Tips and Tricks

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  • jimfrem99
    jimfrem99 over 4 years ago

    I enjoy the show, and I continue to learn lots from everyone!

    (I am following/watching Sudo Sergeant Felix as well!)

    sudo Sergeant

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 4 years ago in reply to makerkaren

    makerkaren - I think that information you have just provided would have been useful as part of the episode 313 show in addition to the time-lapse. Perhaps worth doing a 'behind the scenes' eXtra on it ? - especially if you were to market it as an educational kit.

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  • makerkaren
    makerkaren over 4 years ago in reply to jimfrem99

    Thanks for all the kind words, Jim! Glad you're enjoying The Learning Circuit so far!

     

    Soldering up the hex game was really fun. Felix walked us through it and he's a great teacher. He helped make sure we soldered the components on in the right order so we never soldered ourselves into a corner, so to speak. Felix gave us some great tips. When soldering an SMD part, it helps to put solder on all the pads first, then use solder wick to pull off any excess solder, effectively tinning the pads. This made soldering those tiny resistors MUCH easier. Another thing he showed us was when soldering chips onto the PCB, you start by soldering a pin on one corner and then the opposing corner to help hold it in place. Then you can flood all the pins with solder(quickly and carefully) and use your soldering iron to pull away excess solder by sort of stroking each pin, pulling the iron to the side away from the chip. The surface tension of the solder helps the excess cling to the iron tip and get pulled off the pin. That was really cool to learn.

     

    As for the project as a whole, it's a really fun game and yes, the switches are so satisfying to constantly flip that we wouldn't consider using buttons or slide switches instead. Those switches are just too fun! I also think it's a great tool for learning binary or hex, and with binary, it helps with your math skills, having to constantly add and subtract to find the number. So good!

     

    What has been your favorite part of our builds lately?

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