At the beginning of class, we started with a quiz that tasked us in developing a way of wiring a series of two light bulbs in a configuration where one light would be dim, or both would be bright. The secret to success on this quiz is being familiar with the properties of series and parallel circuits. The bulbs wired up in a parallel to the voltage source would both be bright since the voltage down each branch would be the same as the voltage at the source. The bulbs wired in series with the voltage source would produce a bright and a dim bulb since there is a voltage drop across the first bulb, causing the second bulb to be powered with lesser voltage.
We then viewed a demonstration on the relationship of power and heat. The cup was filled with a saline solution that was used as a conductor between two electrodes. Voltage was applied to the electrodes and a temperature probe measured any increase in temperature of the solution.
From the graph generated by the temperature data, we could solve for values such as resistance and current. The sharp jump in the graph corresponds to an increase of the voltage settings.
Toward the end of class, we watched another demonstration regarding the generating of heat using the internal resistance of food products as a circuit's load. With a high enough voltage, the power through the hot dog was enough to char the ends where the electrodes were attached and cause some mild smoking. Another experiment was performed from the hot dog set up, which dealt with the how the spacing of LED leads would contribute to the power generated by them. It turns out that the LED that was stuck into the hot dog resistor with the largest lead gap was the one that generated the most power. This observation was due to the fact that the wider lead spacing directly related to a larger potential difference across those leads.
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