The Circuit for the New World

This was the second action project of the Urban Planning course and this unit was all about circuits and electricity. I learned a lot about how a circuit works and what the different components of a circuit are. I also learned about AC and DC currents and which one works better in certain situations. Another thing we learned about is resistors, conductors and insulators. The project is basically asking you to make a full functional circuit with 5 resistors. I am most proud of the speaker and the light because they are both functional and the speaker actually sounds pretty cool and can make different sounds when you press the parallel switch.

MV, Circuit board. (2015) 

The photo above depicts our circuit board with all the wires attached and the photo below shows the circuit diagram my group made.

AG, Circuit Diagram. (2015) 

Lamp: an average bulb takes up 20 watts of energy whereas our bulbs take up 70-90% less energy.
Radio: A radio takes up about 4 watts an hour whereas our hand cranked radio uses 0 watts of energy
Washer: our washing machines use 25% less energy and 40% less water than a regular washer
Dryer: an average dryer would use 3,300 watts and the cost of that load would be $0.36 but hang drying would save $1.08 ever 6 and a half minutes and if repeated about nine times it would save $9.96
Generator/solar panel: on average installing a solar panel instead of a normal generator could cut your energy bill anywhere from 50%-90%

BKJ, Circuit Cover. (2015)

6 batteries each battery is 1.5 volts 9 volts in total. Ohm's law states that voltage = amps x resistance. If we had a resistor of 4.5 ohms the current would be
9 = amps x 4.5
Amps = 2

AC is alternating current which means that it can go multiple paths and each resistor is independent. DC current is direct current and means that it flows in one constant motion and in only one path. Our circuit is direct current because it runs in one path and if you were to disconnect one of the wires then none of the resistors would work. Another thing we learned about direct current is that it always runs on a battery. 

So at first we knew that we absolutely needed 5 resistors and 2 switches so when we got the kit we immediately just started connecting wires and tried to see what worked. After playing around for a bit we eventually got the LED bulb to work and from then on we started to get the kit and the process became easier. After the LED bulb was working we then tried to make the speaker work. In my opinion the speaker was one of the most difficult parts to make work because we had no idea what to connect it to to make it work. After a while we eventually got it to work and connected it to the main and parallel switch so it successfully worked with both. The purpose of the resistors in our design are to stop some of the flow of electricity so the power won't be so strong and blow out the bulb or burn out the speaker. Some of the connections were unsuccessful at first because when we would try to connect two wire to the same circuit sometimes it would create a spark and that basically meant we had to find a new place to put that wire.

CITATIONS

Hamm, Trent. "How Much Do You Really Save By Air-Drying Your Clothes? - The Simple Dollar." The Simple Dollar How Much Do You Really Save By AirDrying Your Clothes Comments. The Simple Dollar, 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 15 May 2015.

"Clothes Washers." Clothes Washers. EnergyStar, n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.

Evans, Tara. "How Much Do Household Gadgets Cost to Run? 16% of Electricity Bills Wasted by Appliances Left on Standby." This Is Money. This Is Money, 26 June 2012. Web. 15 May 2015.

"Light Bulbs." Light Bulbs. EnergyStar, n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.

Hamm, Trent. "Turn Off the Lights to Save Money...But How Much? - The Simple Dollar." The Simple Dollar Turn Off the Lights to Save MoneyBut How Much Comments. The Simple Dollar, 18 Nov. 2007. Web. 15 May 2015.