Starting Our Next Project! (5.4.12)

Today we start our second project!  We are going to make lanterns in groups and divided into two groups of two and one group of three.  I am in the group of three working with Erin and Kelsey.  First Oscar reviewed with us the circuitry necessary to power LEDs with batteries.

We decided to make a circuit with three differently colored LEDs and three switches to control each LED.  This is the circuit we came up with:

We decided on creating a square base with three AAA batteries (although the bottom of the image says 2 batteries, we realized we would need three for our circuit). 

I proposed that we hold the batteries within the base by creating an inside panel with one hole for each battery.  This panel would secure the batteries between two of the walls.  It's a little hard to draw, but here's a rough representation of my idea:

Here are more of our sketches:

The LEDs would stick out a hole in the top of the box.  We could then have four magnets at each corner which would allow us to attach various "tops" or "shades" above the light source to make it glow, or manipulate its direction.  We also thought of lining this "shade" with aluminum foil to add to the brightness.

Next we looked at what materials were available to us and decided on using three four-prong LEDs; one red, one blue, one yellow.  We also decided to have a switch correspond to each LED, so we can turn each LED on individually or combine them.  Our LEDs will be parallel to each other, but this is ok because each LED will have its own resistor.

We got to work with our breadboards, after making sure each LED was oriented correctly, came out with this:

Tangent: We also checked out this cool product by Bleep Labs:

http://bleeplabs.com/