Difference between revisions of "Vikram"

Latest revision as of 21:13, 17 October 2015

DAY 1 Introductory class and Micro robot

Day 1 - Soldering exercise

Melting lead onto a circuit board using a soldering iron has always been fascinating. I really enjoyed doing it by myself. The second exercise of the day was to build a basic moving object/robot.

DAY 2 Trip to S.P. Road

S.P. Road

Vishal Electronics

The trip to S.P. Road was quite an arduous one, as I didn't know that ATMs would be so scarce in the area. We walked the entire stretch, from one end to the other at least twice before finally finding one. However, after a chilled coconut juice from a nearby hawker, I felt fresh and satisfied and went on to purchase all the parts that I needed.

Project 1 Lemon battery

Lemon Battery

For the first project, we made a battery using a lemon. The lemon was first pierced with a piece of copper wire and then another piece of galvanized(zinc coated) metal. I used a screw for the latter. The two metals acted as the electrodes(Copper as Anode and zinc as Cathode) and the citric acid as the electrolyte for the conduction of electricity. Voltage measurement using a multimeter showed that the lemon battery had an output of approx. 0.6V. I did this as a part of my 8th grade project so I remembered bits of what had to be done, but doing it again did not diminish it's awesomeness.

DAY 3 "Crazy Switch" Assignment

Switch disengaged

Switch engaged

For today's class, we were asked to make a creative, non conventional switch. My group made this puzzle switch which works with "touch", i.e. when the last piece is put into place. We had fun making this first sensor circuit as it can be applied to actual puzzles and can add to the fun of completing jigsaw puzzles.

DAY 4 Resistors, Capacitors, Diodes

Using diodes and resistors

Today was my first time using these components in electronic circuits. The different functions that these tiny things perform are quite marvelous. The mere fact that they can make or break a circuit and that so much can depend on just one tiny part, is extremely fascinating to me.

Potentiometer, Thermistor & LDR

Potentiometer

LDR

DAY 5 Touch Switch Transistor

Using one end of the green wire as the switch

Using index finger as the switch

Using the transistor was a fun experience as we used our body resistance to light up the LED. One really cool thing that I learnt was that our body resistance is inversely proportional to area of contact and the force applied. This means that the harder you press, the brighter the LED glows.

DAY 6 555 IC

Using the 555

The 555 oscillator was our first IC. I had never imagined an "integrated chip" to be this tiny and cool. Working this component was fairly easy as we used the data sheet and made sounds using a speaker.Click here to watch the video.

Project 2 Making a toy

Toy airplane

For the second project, I made this toy airplane using a 9V battery, a motor, wires and a switch. When it's switched on, the propeller attached to the nose of the plane rotates and drags the airplane forward which rests on a three wheel undercarriage. I couldn't upload a video of the final thing as I'd dismantled it for it's components.

Project 3 LM386 amplifier

Amplifier