I learned several things from watching the LED it Up videos. First of all I learned how to make LEDs light up in general with simple batteries, and then I learned how to create circuits and how they work. LED lights have one longer side and one shorter, which are negative and positive which relates to the sides of the battery that they need to be on. Circuits use female female, male male, and female male wires in order to create a loop of energy. You need a battery and the light in general, but you need a resistor if the battery has too much energy

three things that i learned is that i learned that you have to place the LED light with the south on the north and the north on the south in order for it to work correctly. i also learned that jumper wires are very helpful when trying to create a full circuit. the last thing that i learned is that you need a resistor to make sure that you do not blow the LED light. In this class i made a series  of circuits that was able to turn on an LED light. i used jumper wires, “dimes” female and male wires, a resister, a battery, and an LED light. 

When doing the Arduinos today I learned a few things. First, I learned how negative and positive charges and connections work, and how to get power to the light. I also learned what a resistor does, and why we need to use them. I also learned how to write a code in the Arduino program and upload it to the Arduino. We made 2 boards, here are the pictures.

After exploring and experimenting with LED lights, cables, and bread boards, much concerning the topic was learned. First, we experimented with just wires and a coin battery. I learned the differences between positive and negative sides of the battery, and how to connect the wires. I also learned through this experimentation that there are three different basic types of wires: female-female, male-male, and male-female. The female-female wires had two openings on either side, the male-male wires had two small metal pieces on either side which fit into the female-female openings, and female-male which had an opening on one side and a wire on the other side. In addition, I learned about what a bread board was and how it functions. A bread board is a small plastic board which has many small holes on the exterior. However, below the outer layer which is plastic, there are strips of metal. Each row of small holes are all connected by one strip of metal. Therefore, when you plug in the wire into two different holes on the same line of small holes, it will create a closed circuit.

Below are pictures from some of the experiments that were performed with the LED lights:

In class, we were taught (by watching videos) how to make a circuit. We were introduced to the breadboard as well as basic wire connection. I was able to successfully complete a wire circuit and a circuit on the breadboard. My most occurring problem was mixing up positive and negative on the breadboard. When the LED was in the breadboard but not lighting up it was because not correct when it came to positive and negative.

The first picture is of the wire circuit and this one was the easiest of the two but if it was moved the wrong way the circuit would break.

The second picture is of the breadboard and this (as mentioned before) was not as easy and it is allot harder than it looks.

This week we started our adventure in the world of hobby electronics by learning the basics of circuitry. We experimented with LED’s, cables, and batteries to try to familiarize ourselves with how electrical current can be manipulated to create a circuit. I learned about how one distinguishes between and coordinates certain elements by doing things such as having one leg of the LED longer to represent the positive end. When experimenting with the bread board I learned two more specific details, that utilizing metal strips can help a current be divided into multiple columns and that a battery with voltage higher than that of the device the current is being put into will blow out the device.

This week in art & design, we worked with LEDs, batteries, breadboards, and Arduinos. Last year, we did something similar, but we just copied circuits from a book rather than understanding what the components do. This week, I learned how to make a simple circuit with a switch:

I learned that the wires conencted to the switch must be right next to each other in order to fully connect the piece of metal inside so it can complete the ciruit.

I also watched another one of Ms. Macdonald’s video tutorials and made this:

I ran into trouble with getting the lights to turn on. From this, I learned that the things that are supposed to be connected must be in the same row or column on the breadboard. I also learned that the longer sides of the LEDs are the ‘ground’ side, so that made it much easier to connect it to certain wires. This was an extremely fun hands-on activity for learning about circuits, and I can’t wait to tackle the RGB LED circuits next!

I am not the kind of person that has an easy time understanding circuits and how they work. By working with my partner, and watching a series of videos, I was amazed at what we learned how to do. We learned how to use a battery to make an LED light turn on. I learned that in order to turn it on you have to match up the negative side with the positive side.

The second thing that I learned is how to use the wires to make the LED light turn on. We connected one wire to the battery (in a holder), and the LED light to the other side. The wire was then connected to the switch and then to the LED light.

The third thing that we accomplished was the breadboard. We put a series of wires into certain spots on the breadboard along with an LED light(s). I learned that to put more lights in it you have to put them in the same column as the first light.

Today I learned about switches and how they work. We did several experiments with turning an LED off and on with the switch. I also learned about the difference between Cathodes and Anodes; cathodes are negative while Anodes are positive. I also learned about soldering irons, and how they are hot and NOT FOR TOUCHING. 

This week in Art and Design, we learned how to set up simple circuits. First we learned the most basic principle of how electricity flows through a circuit, so that we could design closed circuits that worked. Otherwise we’d end up with circuits that didn’t have a closed path for electrons to flow through. Then we learned how to set up our circuits on a breadboard and how electricity flows on a breadboard. At first it was a little complicated, but then the pieces started to fall in place with practice. While dealing with breadboards we learned the difference between series circuits and parallel circuits, and how to incorporate resistors, and switches into our breadboards. Lastly, we also learned how to read and draw basic circuits on paper so that we could give and receive instructions, as to how to set up a circuit.

Blog about what you learned from LED it Up..

We learned how to make a circuit and connect it. I watched the videos and learned about anode and cathode and the ways that the positive and negative sides affect how you have to hook up the circuit. We also learned how to work with an LED light and make it do different things based on the program. Our groupd was also introduced to RGB LED lights, but I didn’t get to finish much besides watching the video.

This week in Art & Design, I learned a lot about how circuits work. I learned that is very easy to create a working circuit. For example, we simply put the positive side of a 3V battery on the positive wire of the LED and the negative side of the battery against the negative wire and the circuit was completed, and the LED lit up. I also learned that it is very easy to burn an LED out, especially with a 9V battery, because too much voltage enters the LED, and it overloads its relatively small electric capacity. I also learned the resistors make it possible to prevent this. Resistors take the electricity from the 9V battery, or any other battery, and reduce the charge so things that take a low amount of voltage to run, such as LEDs, will not burn out. Resistors were very helpful when  working with the breadboard.

Here are a couple of my circuits:

While learning about circuits the first thing that we did was learn about how to light up LEDs using a coin battery. To light up the LED we plugged in the positive wire to the positive side, then we did the same with the negative. We connected the jumper cables to the LED and made them light up. After this, we watched a video explaining how to create a simple circuit. We used this diagram to create a simple circuit with a switch and came out successful. Next, we connected the positives and negatives on the breadboard and made the LEDs light up. We used jumper cables and male and female connectors. We learned that the two parts of the breadboard that were split up are not connected, but we can connect them by using jumper cables, in case we needed to add more lights to the breadboard. Lastly, we learned how to make a diagram for a circuit with a resistor. It is like the normal simple circuit diagram but, a little bit more complicated.

Overall, I think that we learned a lot about how to create circuits using coin batteries, jumper cables, male to female cables, a breadboard, and a switch. I think that in the future I would be able to successfully light up LED lights on my own.

I learned many things during my experience learning about LED’s, breadboards, circuits, wires, etc. One specific thing that I learned is that wires can be either male, female, or male/female. Each wire has 2 ends, the end either having a piece of wire coming out or having a hole. The female wires have the wholes at the end, while the male wires have extended wire/metal at the end. In addition to learning about male and female wires I learned how to create a circuit/make an LED light up on a breadboard by creating a loop, contained of both positive and negative sides. I learned how to connect one wire to a positive row and another wire to a negative row and create a circuit by connecting the other half of the positive side and the negative side to the breadboard and creating a circuit from there. Lastly, I learned that sometimes there is too much energy going through the circuit and in order to contain the energy one must use a resistor to slow down/ limit the flow of energy.

Today we finshed up the circuit videos. We learned about how circuits work. For instance, they must be closed, or create a full, unbroken circuit. If it is not a continuous loop, it wont work. Sometimes you can use switches to control that, which have metal that slides in and out of connection. We also learned how RGB LEDs work. We had some problems making ours work, and that helped us understand it more. Lastly, we learned about resistors. I never would have thought that a simple battery could break a light, but it can. Resisters are used to basically lower the violence of the electricity so the light can handle it.

What i Learned.

In class today i learned how to use a battery to light up an LED Circuit. Basically, what you do is your put this coin battery in a slot holder and attach 1 female wire to the right side of the battery and you use a female/male wire on the left side of the battery. Using the right side wire you attach it to the switch. You will need another female wire to attach to the other side of the switch.  Then, you get 1 male wire and attach it to each end of the right side female wire (attached to the switch). Lastly, you use the LED light and attach the positive side (which is the longer leg) to the male wire, and the negative leg will be attached to the female/male wire. There will be a black switch on the battery holder and you switch it on, and the LED should light up. Also using the same coin battery. Also using the coin battery, i learned how to use it in a circuit using the Arduino breadboard. First off you get two female fires and attach them to each side of the battery. On the left side of the battery you will attach a Female/Male wire to the red female wire(shown in picture below). Using the female/male wire, you put the side with the needle inside a slot on the positive side of the breadboard. Using the right side wire (which is blue in the diagram) , you plug in the other side into the negative slot on the breadboard. Then, you need another wire(white wire) and you plug in one side to the negative side of the breadboard and one into the middle space of the breadboard. Then the last wire(green wire) is plugged into the positive side of the breadboard and and then other side is plugged into the middle part of the breadboard. Lastly you need your LED. You take the LED and put it in the middle part of the Breadboard right next to the green and white wire, then your LED light should light up! Lastly, i learned how to use codes on Arduino on my computer to make my RGB light, light up. Last year i learned how to use codes, but it was never really in dept how to use them. This year i really understood how to use  them and i got my light to light up in three different flashing colors!

Today in class I learned about circuits using the bread boards and LED lights. We plugged in the wires and lights to create a full circuit. Finally we used the computers and code to cause the lights to flash. There were a lot of errors for us but switching computers helped us. We also learned how to add another flashing light but just put one into another ground and the other in the other ground slot.