Week 1

Week 1

1.     The class format on a tri-weekly format consists of:

Table 1: A Weekly Outline for Circuit Lab

Weekly Schedule for Circuit Lab
Time	Monday	Outside of Class	Wednesday	Friday	Outside of Class
8:00 am	Quiz Discussions	Respond to comments	Lab		Finish blog entries Comment on 2 blogs Take-home quiz
8:30 am	Lab intro
8:45 am	Lab
9:00 am				Blog Commenting
9:15 am
9:30 am				Blog Discussion
9:45 am	Wrap it up!		Wrap it up!

Quizzes (15) make up 45% of the class, blogs (15) reports 30%, midterms (2) 10%, and the final exam (1) 15%

2.     Important safety rules:

•        Do not work alone when working with energized electrical equipment.
•         Make sure the power is off when assembling a circuit. Remember that capacitors store charges and are to be handled with caution even after the power source is removed from the circuit
•         Never touch electrical equipment while standing on a wet or metal floor. In addition never touch electrical equipment with wet hands.
•        When measuring data in live circuits be sure to put one hand behind the back to prevent current from flowing
•        Wearing jewelry on your wrists or hands can be hazardous and it is advised to remove them or use added caution when wearing them.
•        Never lunge or grasp at falling circuit components, whether they are live or not, circuit components have metal leads that could pierce your skin.
•        Never touch two pieces of equipment at the same time. This completes loop and allows current to flow. To be safe never touch any aspect of the circuit with your bare hands, it could deliver a shock. In addition, some components release high levels of heat, which can cause burns.
•     Ask the instructor before hooking up the circuit to power.

3.  Current is the lethal force that will kill you. Low levels of current can be completely benign or cause a small tingly sensation; this is at level of .001 amps to .01 amps. Current higher than .01 amps can cause the muscle paralysis that forces the person being shocked to continue to hold onto the current source. This is dangerous because prolonged exposure can make breathing difficult and painful shock. When current is .1 to .2 amps death occurs. Interestingly enough current over .2 amps isn’t instantly lethal. There is enough current to keep you alive. This is because the heart is in a clenched state that doesn’t allow for ventricular fibrillation to occur, but the current causes severe burns and causes you to stop breathing.

4. Link for video demonstration on how to read resistor color code (https://youtu.be/Sc0sTWF0eUI)

5. Tolerance is the margin of error that a resistor's has. In example if a '100' ohm resistor had a 5% tolerance, that means when the resistor is applied to a circuit its actual value could range by 5%. Therefore are 100 ohm resistor could produce values from 95 ohms to 105 ohms (+/- 5% of 100 ohms)

6. A chart proving that all of our resistors were in the tolerance range:

Resister Band Value (ohms)	Tolerance	Range (ohms)	Measured Value (ohms)
160 ohms	5% (0.05)	152 ohms-168 ohms	158.31 ohms
1500 ohms	5% (0.05)	1425 ohms-1575 ohms	1503.22 ohms
67 ohms	None this was 5 band and the 5th band color was white so there is no tolerance for this specific resister.	67 ohms (because it has no tolerance, its range can fluctuate up and down, it’s fixed)	67 ohms
27.2 ohms	10%	24.48 ohms -29.92 ohm	27 ohms
20.1 ohms	10%	18.09 ohms - 22.11 ohms	20 ohms
20.2 ohms	5%	19.19 ohms - 21.21 ohms	20 ohms
25.2 ohms	10%	22.68 ohms - 27.72 ohms	25.1 ohms
39.1 ohms	5%	37.145 ohms - 41.055 ohms	39 ohms
2200 ohms	5%	2090 ohms - 2310 ohms	2202 ohms
100 ohms	5%	95 ohms - 105 ohms	101 ohms

7. When using a multimeter to measure the voltage and current two different techniques need to be used. When you are measuring the current you need to break the current loop and attach the multimeter where you broke the current loop. This is because the current needs to travel through the multimeter. When measuring the voltage across a resistor you touch each lead of the resistor with the multimeter. You do this to observe how much voltage a particular component is using.

8. The power supply will give you 2 different options of voltages. The first would be the fixed position all the way to the left. This position will give you a constant 5V, and no you cannot change the voltages of this position, it will always be 5V. The other option is 0.24V coming from both the A and B power supplies. Yes, you can change this voltage higher or lower depending on what voltage your looking for. Also applying current will help to get more voltage out of these 2 power supplies.

9. Video and Picture Demonstration for circuit results (https://youtu.be/yTZoMPjd1G8)

Picture of Group 10 measuring the voltage through a resistor

10.

A table demonstrating how Ohm's Law can be used to find calculate the value of a resistor

Picture showing the setup used to measure values for a particular resistor

11. Video Demonstration for Rube Goldberg Circuit (https://youtu.be/z1NWg-PpW30)

12.

A schematic diagram of the Rube Goldberg circuit

13. You could use this motor with a wheel attached to it to charge a capacitor. The wheel would have an LED attached to it which would spin with the DC motor. When the LED passes directly in front of a light sensor the current can be sent through and charge a capacitor which would then release the charge to push a ball.