A quick report on week two of our English and Electronics (英語で電気工作教室):

We had a quick review of the content covered in week one especially the names of the various components (switch, light, wire, battery etc) and the idea of an electrical circuit needing everything to be connected in orde for it work. This was helped by completing a worksheet to identify the valid circuits.

We then looked more closely at LEDs, I had a selection of red, green, blue, orange, yellow and pink LEDs for us to use. But what do LEDs need to keep them happy?  That's right, a resistor. So we looked a various resistors and using a color code chart were able to read the values. For example red, green, brown bands indicate it's a 250Ω resisitor, brown, black, brown band equal a 100Ω rsistor and brown, black, black bands will indicate a 10Ω resistor. We used a magnifying glass to help see the bands!

We then moved on creating a bank of buttons to control the various colour LEDs. For this we used an electrical breadboard, so firstly we looked at how the breadboard is wired before using nippers to trim the buttons, LEDs and the all important resistors before placing them in the breadboard to create valid circuits.

Once we had checked that the various LEDs were inserted the right way round, and all the circuits were working we proceeded to push the buttons to light up the LEDs. We either called out colors and the children had to press theright button or we made up modified color songs and they had to follow along!

We finished by discussing what we had learned today, and packing the completed circuits in a bag so the children could take them home and play. Next week we will be attempting to automate those buttons by connecting everything to an Arduino.

You can also watch a short video clip of the LEDs lighting up as a student pushes the buttons following my commands (more or less...)

https://youtube.com/shorts/mwYyK7sEMEE?feature=share