Friday, January 13, 2017

Week one

Week One

  • Monday  

1.) Class format: 


Monday: Discuss take home quiz (8:00-8:15),  Lab introduction (8:15-8:30), Lab (8:30-9:45), Wrap up (9:45-end)

Wednesday: Lab (8:00-9:45), Wrap up (9:45-end).

Friday: Possible Lab time, Blog commenting, Blog discussion.

Outside of Class: Take home quiz, comment on 2 blogs assigned, respond to comments on your blog and finish blog entries.


  • The class is out of 1000 points total. Each week 50 points is possible, composed of 30 points from a quiz and 20 points from a blog report. Additionally, 50 points per midterm (2) and 150 points for the final.

   2. ) Important Safety Rules:

  • Always work with a partner when using energized electrical equipment.
  • Always make sure all aspects of your workspace are dry.
  • Identify where safety equipment (first aid kid, fire extinguisher, phone, etc...) is.
  • Don't wear things on your hands that could prove to be hazardous.
  • When making measurements with probes, be sure one of your hands is placed behind your back.
  • Treat circuits with caution as they could be "hot". Also never touch 2 pieces of equipment simultaneously.
  • Always have an instructor inspect your circuit before applying power.

3.) Does Current Kill?  

Yes, current can kill you when it reaches a level of 100-200mA.

4.) How to read resistor color codes


5.) What is tolerance?

Tolerance is the range of acceptable values that a resistor may have. An example of tolerance occurred during lab when measuring resistor values vs. their displayed value. A resistor advertised as 180ohms ended up measuring 177.3ohms and with a tolerance level of +/- 5% or +/-9ohms was within the acceptable range. 

6.) Proof resistors are within range




All resistors are within range except for the 210 ohm resistor. This could be due to error that occurred during measurements or because of a flawed resistor. 

Wednesday

7.) Measuring voltage and current with the DMM

When measuring current with the DMM, you must break the loop and measure where the opening is to assure that the current doesn't remain in the circuit and avoid the DMM, preventing a measurement. On the contrary, when measuring voltage with the DMM, you preserve the loop and measure on both sides of the source. If you the loop is broke, there will be no current and as result, no voltage to measure.

8.) Different voltage values from a power source

Three different voltages can be supplied at one time by the power source. One is fixed at 5V and two are able to be changed independently anywhere from 0V-25V.

9.) Practice circuit results

Practice Circuit



Measuring Current and Voltage through the circuit



10.). How do you experimentally prove Ohm’s Law? Provide measurement results. Compare calculated and measured voltage, current, and resistance values. 

In order to successfully prove Ohm's Law, we applied five different voltages to two different resistors. The voltages and currents were put on a table, and utilizing Ohm's Law which states that R(Resistance)=V(Voltage)/I(Current), we were able to calculate the resistance of the two resistors. The results we acquired were pretty accurate, which proves that the Ohm's Law is accurate. 

Test 1: 53 Ohm Resistor
Test 2: 1000 Ohm Resistor

11.) Rube Goldberg Circuit

In the video below we can hear and observe how the motor runs. We can also hear it stop once we cover the photo resistor, proving we have a fully working circuit.



Friday

12.) Draw the circuit diagram for the Rube Goldberg set up.


13.) How can you implement this setup into a Rube Goldberg Machine

We could activate the photo resistor utilizing any type of light source. This would make the handle move forward utilizing a type of motor. The ping pong ball would land inside the cup making it move forward, therefore falling inside a bucket placed below it where the next Rube Goldberg circuit could be triggered




5 comments:

  1. Good detailed blog this week, clean set up. With a video for question 4 and completing questions 12 and 13, should be an easy A.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your blog is very thorough. It might be helpful, though, if your pictures were a little closer to the circuit to make things more clear.
    ~Group 4

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thought your blogs pictures were pretty clear myself and the format of the text at the beginning is amazing. However, some of the answers seem like they're lacking in detail, extending off of what you already have wouldn't hurt. Don't forget to place some sort of title or context for the embedded videos. Polish it up a bit, maybe check out some of the other templates Blogger has to offer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I liked the tables you used, and thought your answers/explanations from answering the questions and video's posted were clear.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good circuit drawing. Nice tables and videos.
    - Captions missing.

    ReplyDelete