Stan was able to find some solar powered garden lights at a cheap price for us.
He then came in to show us how to make them into a night light.
Stan talked about the energy we get from the sun (solar energy) and how it is so easy to collect - the sun shines in most places on a daily basis (even when cloudy, we still get energy from the sun).
Stan also shared with us the basic workings of the solar light so we had an idea of how and why it works - it is quite simple really: The small solar panel collects the energy from the sun, charges the battery, and when it is dark the small light bulb glows.
Stan showed us how to make and attach a very basic switch to our garden light enabling us to switch it on and off (very handy!!) - creating a night light!
This is how we made the switch...
Firstly, we had to cut a small length of quite thick cardboard to place between the positive end of the battery causing no power to run through and the bulb to not glow.
Secondly, we cut small strips of tin foil (thinner and shorter than our cardboard) to paste onto either side of our cardboard.
Next, we placed the cardboard between the positive end of the battery to stop the power going through. But remember: the tin foil is on either side (and we know tin foil is a conductor opposed to an insulator).
Now, to turn the light on (with the cardboard in place). Get a paper clip and clip it onto the cardboard so it is touching the tin foil on either side - and... the bulb glows! Why? Because both the tin foil and the paper clip conduct electricity and the tin foil is touching both the positive end of the battery and the terminal. The paper clip just completes the circuit!
Brilliant!
Check out the great slide show of some of the photo's from our making!
3 comments:
Hi room 12 this is Sophie hope you are enjoying this term so far well what can I say it's so different here instead of having 2 break times we have 3 brain food is our extra break time up here my 2 best friends are Lucy Candy and Madison Gocglan they were not my friends @ 1st though if u would like more info about my life please email me Emily and co have my gmail adress please put more on the blog about the class on the blog thx by the way please read the class the 2 comments I placed on the blog mr hull hopefully you can get on my school blog by the way when I get here I will show Emily or hailey how to get on my class blog so just wait it's not as cool as your class blog though it has no pictures of my class on it or matter a fact it has no pics at all!
Sorry for posting such a big comment it's just been a busy 5 weeks or so
Bye bye miss you all
Sophxxoo
P- It was dun making them
M- we could only do one
I- how the switch works
Emily
p- we got to take them home.
m- the switches were hard to make.
i- how thy work.
liam
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