This is a guest post written by Girltactics. This was a grade 6 Science Project on Building Electrical Circuits.
Flower Night Light
Materials:
The materials and tools needed for this particular electrical project are:
- A small, round cardboard box.
- 7 small clear light bulbs with bases
- About 6 feet 4 inches of wire
- 3 9 volt batteries
- 27 1 ¼ inch alligator clips
- An electrical drill
- 1 basic ON/OFF switch
- Wire cutters (or scissors)
- 1 butter knife (or wire stripper)
- Electrical tape
- Acrylic paint (optional)
Procedure:
1) Firstly, take the lid of the cardboard box, one of the light bulbs with a base, and lightly trace the bottom of the light bulb in a circle with a pencil. Continue tracing the light bulb in different places. Arrange the circles so that there are six petals (make a hexagon) and one bulb in the very center. This will be the template.
2) Next, take the electric drill, and drill holes where the bulbs are penciled in. Afterwards, you can place a bulb in each hole, just to make sure they are the right size.
3) For now, you will only need to cut 14 pieces of wire, each about 4 inches long. After you have all 14 cut, take the butter knife, and cut the plastic insulator off of the ends of the wire, leaving about 2cm of the wire exposed on either end.
4) Now that you have the wires for the light bulbs ready, place all of the light bulbs in their hole. There should be two prongs on either end of the bottom of the light bulb base. This is where the wire will be wrapped. There will be three circuits in total of this device: Two consisting of three light bulbs each, and one (The center bulb) lone circuit. The first one to wire is the center circuit; which also happens to be the simplest. Wrap one end of one wire around one prong, and attach another wire to the other prong as well. Make sure that the very tip of the wire is touching the metal of the prong, otherwise the circuit will not work, as the electricity has nowhere to travel to or from.
5) There are still two more circuits to wire. However, they are both identical. The end bulb in the three bulb circuit will need one wire attached to each prong. The outermost prong will have a loose wire attached to it; meaning it will only be wired to the light for the moment. The other prong on the bulb will have the loose end of the wire attached to the closest prong on the neighboring light bulb. This will be repeated until wire is attaching all three light bulbs. Then, repeat for the remaining three lights, but do not attach the two circuits of three.
6) You will now need to cut three more wires, and repeat the method of removing the plastic insulator. Take each wire, and wrap one end of each together, so that they are all attached, and the three ends become one. Next, wrap the bundle of wires around one of the prongs on the switch, as you did the light bulbs. Secure the ends with electrical tape, using tweezers to wrap the tape tightly.
7) Now take one of the loose ends from each circuit, and do the same as you did with the wires you attached to the switch; intertwine them into a bundle. Then, secure the bundle to another prong on the switch using the same method with the tape as in step 6.
8) Now all there is left to do is add the batteries to the circuits. There should be three loose ends left: one in each circuit. Attach one battery to each wire. Then, attach one loose wire coming from the switch to each battery. Make sure the switch is off to avoid danger.
9) Turn on the switch, and watch the lights turn on! Enjoy!
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