Imagine that one day you are working as an electrician (definition:A person who installs, operates, maintains, or repairs electrical devices or electrical wiring) and the boss asks you to build a circuit that wires a room, with the following requirements:
“The breaker panel should be arranged in six parallel branches: three of them containing two outlets and six lights, two of them with four outlets and two lights, and one of them as a separate line that connects to one of the outlets in the 4-2 branch. And make it fast!” (Wood, 2017)
In addition, your boss may give you a diagram to support their request above:
It may feel like what your boss has asked for verbally and what has been shown in the above diagram could be a different language altogether! As you can see, electricians communicate using a set of symbols that form a schematic circuit diagram to show how the electrical components are connected.
Each electrical component in a circuit has its own symbol to represent it. Review the image below (and click here to load a PDF document) to learn common electric circuit symbols.
TASK #1 - Designing a Circuit
TASK #2 - Build a Circuit
Build the circuit you have designed (from Task #1) by using the PhET Circuit Builder Simulation.
Note: This activity is optimized for a tablet or larger screen size. Be sure to view the interactive in fullscreen mode. Also on tab #1 of the interactive scroll down to the bottom of the screen to locate the Phet Circuit Builder Simulation or open the PhET Circuit Builder Simulation in a new window and toggle back and forth between the activity and the lab. Important: The next button in the interactive is disabled until all of the 9 simulations have been completed. Sorry there is no shortcut for this activity ;-)
In the previous activity, you learned how to be safe with electricity and the difference between voltage, current and resistance. In this activity you have learned how current electricity can flow in different circuit types; how a circuit behaves, depending on its series or parallel nature; and how to communicate a diagram of the circuit.
Imagine you have been hired as an electrical apprentice and asked to summarize and demonstrate your knowledge, by designing the electrical wiring of a living room. Your living room circuit should consist of a minimum of the following electrical components:
Your circuit diagram submission that includes the following: