Summary:
A small-scale house is constructed, decorated, and lighted with circuits, two batteries, six light bulbs, a set of wires, and other materials. Lighting the house required a certain number of lights within both a parallel circuit and a series circuit.
In this Project our goal is to build a house, decorate it, and most importantly; light it with our own circuits, bulbs, and batteries. In order to light the house we must use a certain number of lights within both a parallel and series circuit. Our resources consisted of two batteries, 6 light bulbs, a set of wires, paperclips, oak tag, and anything needed to build the structure, and to decorate it. Some of the research we have collected through readings, handouts, worksheets, etc. One problem which we faced was that our house was two stories high and would be very difficult to wire from the inside. This was because there were many different rooms and two floors, meaning the wiring would be very complex and would be hard to make neat. This brings me to my next subject: which type of building we chose. My partner and I chose to build a large house consisting of two floors, a courtyard, and a porch, all of which will be filled with an assortment of action figures to spice it up a bit.
To solve the issue of wiring from the inside we simply wired from the outside. This way, none of the walls interfered with the wires, making so that the wires followed a flat surface and were all together making the wiring neat and convenient.
Diagram 1
In our first diagram we decided that we would have two switches and two sets of batteries, thus giving the bulbs more power. We had one set of 3 light bulbs on each floor to spread out the lighting, with all of the wiring on the inside
Diagram 2
The key differences between our first and second diagram were that we chose to have the wiring on the outside, and have only 1 set of batteries and one switch. This was because having the wiring on the inside would be incredibly hard and complex, due to all of the rooms, and through having two sets of batteries and two switches there was a lot more room taken up, and a lot more wires to attach things too.
Circuit Diagrams
Series Parallel
A series circuit is a circuit in which all of the resistors are connected to each other, while in a parallel circuit the circuits are closed within each bulb; this way if one bulb dies, the others will stay lit. The bulbs are in some way connected, through wires, to the battery holder which consists of a little box of oak tag, paperclips, and two batteries. The box tag holds the batteries, the paperclip transfers the charge from the battery to the wire, and the batteries make the charge. When the paperclip touches the metal it creates a closed circuit, which lets the charge through to the light bulbs, but when it doesn't touch the metal is creates an open circuit which cuts off the charge.
If I had more time or materials, I would try to possibly make a two way switch, or maybe I could use the least amount of batteries and get the most amount of brightness. On the other hand, instead of adding more lights I could just wrap tin foil around the edges so that the light is reflected and brighter. Overall if I were to give tips on building a living unit I would have to say make a diagram of the building, then, based on the diagram, make a circuit diagram, and then build everything, also keep in mind how many batteries you will need to fully light your house, so that the lights are bright enough. That way you know what to do and when to do it.
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