My 9 yr old daughter needs to do a simple electronics project. Must run on D cells. Have parallel and series circuits. Needs some switches, and "energy converters" ( light bulbs, motors, fan elecromagnet etc.) She is looking to me for help and I am drawing a HUGE blank trying to come up with something for her. Anybody have any design ideas or have done a simple science project like this. ANY input is appreciated.

 

Are the parts to be used provided or are you expected to purchase the parts you need?

hgmjr

 

Parts are not provided. They may be purchased or taken from old toys, flashlights, etc.

 

Maybe a simple electro magnet. Quite easy to build and shows a lot interesting principle in electronics.

 

Hmm a hard question to answer. It is easy to make this very fancy and cool. But then it would more or less be your science project and not hers Perhaps using a electromagnet and do some trick with iron filings. Or if you can get hold on some solar cell. Use this to power a light bulb or LED. And show that the output is depended on the amount of incoming light. Or say measuring the solar cell output through the day (outdoor), and make a chart of it, and discuss the result.

 

I got this for my granddaughter (age 7) last Christmas. She loves it, and it is not too difficult for her mom either

While buying something like that may not meet the requirement for a science project, it will give you some ideas of circuits and what you will need to buy. It is also kind of fun (I played with it too).

John

 

Thanks for the posts. Would love to make it fancy and cool, maybe feed her some ideas (if I had any) and brainstorm with her while she draws it out. Thought about the solar cell but how would it work inside a classroom. Is the lighting enough? Need to include series and parallel circuits too. I saw info about the electro magnets and the snap circuits-may need to take a closer look.

 

LEDs are pretty easy, and are striking visually. You can literally get any color in the rainbow.

The newer models are bright enough you will need to supervise her use of them however, since they can cause vision damage if shined directly into the eyeball. I used to to something similar with regular flashlights when I was a kid.

They can be made safe by not running them at their maximum brightness, or even close.