Adventures in Engineering

Today we had a student in engineering from Ottawa U come and teach us about electricity. We did an experiment where we got to build a circuit. He gave us two different kinds of play dough (one with sugar-white one with salt-yellow). Then we had to roll the yellow ball of play dough into four strips and the white into two. After we had to connect the battery he gave us to two positive-negative wires (one black, one red). Next we had to put one of the white play dough rolls between to yellow then connect the two wires (that are connected to the battery) into each of the two yellow play dough rolls. Finally we connected an LED light into the other ends of the yellow play dough and our goal was to get the LED lights to light up. For some groups it took a while but everyone got it by the end. One group created a short circuit by connecting the two ends of the wires straight to the LED light without any play doh and the result was that the light burnt out and was smoking. After the student from Ottawa U left, Ray brought us to the carpet to teach us a bit more about circuits while it was fresh in our brains. Ray explained to us about two different kinds of circuits, parallel and series, and what would happen if a light bulb on the series circuit burnt out. It was really fun to learn about circuits and look forward to more!
-Molly