By: Meghan Thoreau, OSU Extension Educator, Community Development & STEM, Pickaway County

Why Understanding Simple Circuits is Important?

Basic circuit knowledge is important for many different disciplines, including engineering, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. It’s also useful knowledge around this time of year when you may need to repair a string of old holiday lights. Understanding and building simple circuits show us important concepts learned in school that can describe useful real-world systems, like devices we use every day, cell phones, light switches, Chromebooks, cars, etc.

The electric charge that flows through your house is called your electric circuit. This carries useful energy through your house that you can transform into other forms of energy to do various tasks. The US standard household circuit has an effective voltage that takes 120 volts. Volts represent the energy per unit charge. We discussed these basic building blocks of simple circuits in STEM Club this month. Our hands-on simple circuit design challenge uses 3-volt lithium batteries. Before jumping into our design challenges we’ll cover a few basic circuitry concepts and energy principles.

For the program presentation, click here.

Conservation of Energy, First Law of Thermodynamics

The conservation of energy principle was discovered and published by Julius Robert von Mayer in 1842. Mayer was a German physician, chemist, and physicist and one of the founders of thermodynamics. However, there were many others working in the field that made significant contributions, such as James Prescott Joule, Hermann von Helmholtz,  Alessandro Volta, and Benjamin Thomson.

The principle of conservation of energy is an effective tool in solving problems and understanding how different forms of energy directly impact our lives. There are also benefits to this principle. These include recycling of materials, lower energy costs for consumers, less pollution due to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, and less harm to animals and the environment. We watched a short video, from Two Minute Classroom, that explained the basic concepts of how energy transforms itself into other forms and never truly disappears or is destroyed.

Below are 10 common types of energy:

Image source: https://www.thoughtco.com/main-energy-forms-and-examples-609254

Atoms and Electrons

Students learned the basic concepts of atoms and electrons, because, without the flow of electrons, we have no electric circuit to work with. They also learned the chemistry of a battery and how chemical reactions occur inside the battery that causes an imbalance or a build-up of electrons (-) on one side of the battery over the other, hence why one side or one terminal of the battery is negative (-) and the other positive (+). We also introduced the basic materials for our hands-on design challenges and explain how a battery works.

Screenshot from our virtual simple circuit presentation.

How a Battery Works

Batteries are important to everyday life. Batteries are essential to most electrical devices. They exist in our cars, cell phones, laptops, and other electronic appliances, and serve as critical backup sources of electricity in telecommunications, public transportation, and medical devices. A battery is essentially a container full of chemicals that produce electrons (-). Inside the battery itself, a chemical reaction produces electrons.

The battery is a device that stores chemical energy and converts it to electrical energy. The chemical reactions in a battery involve the flow of electrons from one material (electrode) to another, through an external circuit. The flow of electrons provides an electric current that can be used to do work. In our case, students use copper tape to build a paper circuit to create light energy with an LED. Below depicts the inner wors of a battery.

Screenshot of how a battery works from our virtual simple circuit presentation.

The students learned that a battery has three main parts: an anode (-), a cathode (+), and the electrolyte that separates the two terminal ends of the battery. We discussed the chemical reaction happening inside the battery that causes electrons (-) to build up on one side of the battery causing one end to be negatively charged (-) and the other end positively charged (+). This buildup causes an imbalance of electrons (-), that want to travel to the other side of the battery, but can’t move freely until a conductive circuit is completely looped for the electrons to travel through; in our case, the conduit is copper tape.

When a circuit is complete, or a loop created, the electrons will flow through the conductive paths racing to reach the other side of the battery terminal. When the electrons flow through the loop, the chemical energy inside the battery is transformed into electrical energy running through the circuit. When all electrons (-) make it to the other side, the battery stops working. All of the electric energy was transformed into other forms of energy.

Electrical energy allows us to do work by transforming energy into other forms. We use LEDs in our paper circuit design challenge because it’s a simple way to show how electric energy is transformed or converted into light energy. We could replace the LED with a simple motor and the motor would convert electrical energy into kinetic.

Screenshot of simple circuit components and electricity concepts from our virtual simple circuit presentation.

Image source: https://diotlabs.daraghbyrne.me/docs/controlling-outputs-motors/diodes/

A motor does not have a diode, therefore current can flow in either direction, and depending on how the motor is connected to the battery will decide what direction the motor turns left/right, or moves forwards/backward.

Image source: https://www.robotroom.com/DPDT-Bidirectional-Motor-Switch.html

By: Meghan Thoreau, OSU Extension Educator

In STEM Club, we stress the importance of multidisciplinary learning and problem-solving by allowing students to engage in hands-on STEM challenges. Remember, it takes more than one subject to solve real-world problems. It’s also important to stress a lifelong learning mode where the body and mind are working together. A healthy active mind requires a healthy active body; the two systems work and support each other.

Click on the presentation link below to rewatch the Heart and Circulatory videos watched during STEM Club, https://prezi.com/p/2gqjunmwk9mg/?present=1.

This unit focused on heart health, the circulatory system, the respiratory system, and how wearable tech helps people monitor their heart health, activity levels, and sleep cycles to contribute to a higher quality of life and well-being.

Students learn about the heart, the circulation system, and the respiratory system.

Heart Health

The heart is at the center of our blood delivery system and is therefore central to life and how our body works. The students learned about the anatomy of the heart, a muscle that beats 100,000 times per day in our chests’.

The heart pumps 5-6 quarts of blood each minute through 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our body. If we laid those blood vessels end to end, we could wrap them around Earth two and a half times. That is an incredible factoid to appreciate and hopefully cause the students to want to learn more about our complex human anatomy. Because of our body’s complexity, the students learn that we study the body by its systems. This STEM unit introduced two systems, the circulatory and the respiratory systems, and explained how they work together with the heart.

Source: http://www.sciencebook.dkonline.com/48.html

Wearable Technology

The second half of this unit focused on how wearable tech helps people monitor their heart health, activity levels, and sleep cycles. Wearable technology is a tool to help people maintain an active lifestyle by monitoring their body functions.

Click on the presentation link to review the interactive presentation that was presented during club time. It includes helpful reminders on how to use the smartwatches and pair devices to mobile devices using an App, https://prezi.com/view/8akYElau9Dnfcy90g1pF/.

Our young STEMist learned that physical fitness matters. Our body and brain need a mix of activity and mind challenges to stay healthy. Teens need at least 60 minutes of daily activity, whereas adults can get away with 150 minutes/week! Wearable technology is growing and becoming a popular accessory for all ages. It’s estimated that in 2023 almost 35% of people in the U.S. will be wearing some form of wearable technology.

The unit brokedown wearable technology and allowed students to see and understand all the working components. The students also learned how to calculate their resting heartbeat by hand.

Each student received a smartwatch to measure their heartbeats per minute (BPM) and blood pressure through a green LED pulse sensor. The smartwatch’s tracking features include steps, distance, calories, heart rate, blood pressure, and sleep monitoring, and the ability to be paired with an App for a mobile device for additional data and tracking analysis of heart health. The students were each given a smartwatch to have and continue exploring and using.

Finally, the students engaged in different physical fitness challenges while monitoring their BPMs. Students can also pair their smartwatches with a mobile device to look at their daily, weekly, or monthly activity.  their data to a computer using free downloadable software to continue investigating their physical activity results.

Again refer to the STEM Club presentation on wearable technology for reminders on how to use smartwatches given to each student.

By: Meghan Thoreau, OSU Extension Educator

Student started their New Year’s applying what they learned about binary code, algorithms, and computer programming to code connected toys and TI-Rovers through an array of challenges and obstacles. Take a minute and watch the program highlight video above.

DAY 1

Rachel Gorsuch, a Math and Data Science Teacher at Teays Valley High School and T3 Regional Instructor for Texas Instruments, visited our program to challenge students to solve open-ended problems by programming the TI-Innovator Rover, a robotic vehicle, through a maze.

Graphing calculators can open new channels for inquiry, exploration and connection as students use the built-in TI-Basic coding language or Python (on equipped handhelds) to program the TI-Innovator components. Students program rovers to put math and science in motion, adding a physical dimension to verbal, symbolic and graphic representations.

DAY 2

Students coded connected drones from Spheros, a robotics company, best known for its programmable robots and connected toys. Students coded both, Sphero RVRs and Sphero Bolt, customizable robots that can be programmed and controlled using various platforms like Scratch, Sphero Edu App, Raspberry Pi, or Arduino.

Our program used Sphero EDU free app available in both Google Play or the App Store. Sphero EDU allows users to program using block code or text.

Sphero is designed to be educational, allowing users to learn about robotics, coding, and electronics in a hands-on way. The Sphero RVR is equipped with various sensors, motors, and expansion ports, making it suitable for a wide range of projects and applications.

You can typically buy Sphero products, including Sphero RVRs, from various retailers both online and in physical stores. Some popular places to purchase Sphero robots include:

1. Official Sphero website: The official Sphero website often offers a wide range of products directly from the manufacturer.
2. Online retailers: Websites like Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target often carry Sphero products in their inventory.
3. Specialty robotics or educational stores: Some specialty stores focus on robotics, STEM education, or educational toys, and they may carry Sphero products.
4. Electronics stores: Stores like Apple Stores, Fry’s Electronics, or Micro Center might have Sphero products available for purchase.

Be Creative, Keep Coding.