This workshop is for 7 - 13 year olds. The children make up small christmas trees and cards before the workshop. These are then decorated with a simple LED circuit that the childen build for themselves. In the process they learn about series and parallel circuits, LED's, wiring, resistors and soldering. This is essential electronics / physics learnt in a fun way.
In addition to learning about basic wiring (soldering) they learn that LED's and batteries need to be connected correctly, and that in a series circuit if one component is incorrectly wired, it affects the others in the chain. They can choose 4 LED's from a variety of colours: red, orange, yellow and green (we also include an extra 5th flashing LED not shown in the diagram that wires directly across the battery).
Note: for details of talks and workshops on this topic click here: talks and workshops
Our xmas LED circuit: two series circuits (each containing 2 LEDs and a resistor) wired in parallel.
photo of the 'birds nest' construction - long wires allow arranging the LED's as desired on the tree or card.
stages in making the circuit: cutting, striping, wiring and soldering
stages in making the circuit: testing out 2 of the LED's at the half-way stage
group shot of various creations with their LED circuits fitted in place
NOTE: Although none of the experiments shown in this site represent a great hazard, neither the Creative Science Centre,
Jonathan Hare nor The University of Sussex can take responsiblity for your own experiments based on these web pages.
