Hi Tech, I'm in a basic electrical class...

Hi Tech, I'm in a basic electrical class, and my teacher wants me to provide / create something that can be used to attract people at a recruiting event coming up. Since it's only basic electricity, I want to do something that can showcase about what we're learning, and not up sell it for any more than what we're doing.

I had idea's about having something involving LED strips to show how interchanging resistors would effect current [sending pulses of on LED's up the strip, moving faster with lower values, and slower with higher values, as well as doing the same when the value is the same, but switches on the bottom are flipped on, to act like additional levels of voltage also increase current flow]. But I figured that it was more a demonstration of OHM's law, instead of what the course really focuses on.

We covered the basics of Electricity, but the course is much more about being an electrician, so I wanted to work on something involving lighting and light switches, and so I was thinking of having a game of Black Out, using only light switches, and some other really basic electrical components. I am pretty sure it's doable, but I'll be honest, I'm struggling. We've really only covered the most basic, fundamentals of electrical circuits up to the point, but the entire program eventually resolves into full Motor Control, and then diverges into Code study or entering into Logical Control systems for industrial application.


How can I go about wiring a display of lights and switches to play a game of Black out that results in something like the images posted. Is it a task that I can have added complexity to? Would it be useful having 'intermediary' steps between the solution to illustrate to myself more ways? Ideally, I want there to be only the single solution, but I feel like, just with the way light switches work, with no logic built in, there might be other ways to get to the 'answer'.

Attached: Start position 2.png (1656x640 8.95 KB, 8.96K)

Other urls found in this thread:

sciencemadness.org/library/books/projects_for_the_amateur_scientist.pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

maybe try reddit

I'm not OP but what kind of an answer is that? If you don't know anything about electricity then just don't bother man.

It's all good, I know that this really is basically a 'PLZ HLP, my homework is hard!' thread. I know that there's an easy way to do it using logical controls. [probably] and that the 'If you're doing homework ask reddit', but I also thought maybe the Zig Forums people on 8ch would have a good idea of how to go about things.

It isn't even something I HAVE to do, but I thought it might be fun project to work on. I understand fully if there's no interest at all in helping some fuckhead, and asking reddit might help, but I trust image boards over upvotes.

I know that I can wire it like this for the solution, but i'm trying to see if there are reasonable ways to have it so that flipping the switches activate 2 lights at once, and activated different combinations of lights so that one might be able to reasonably find the solution, other than just trying the 'flip all the switches, and try every possible combination of switch flips'

Attached: Solution 2.png (1146x721, 30.92K)

get an arduino my dude

I'm not familiar with "Black out", is this anything like "mastermind"?

Just make some tesla shit.

Attached: tesla 1.jpg (700x625, 103.09K)

What components can you use?

make a led music visualizer with it

first grow some pubes

Can you post course summary or something so that we can get a better idea of things that we can do? Does "basic electricity" include electrostatics and magnetism? Who will visit this event? What age group?

We already have a Jacob's ladder, but the instructor wants something interactive so that people walking by will not just stop and look at the booth and walk away, but stop, interact, and talk with us so that we can upsell the school and the program.

I'd go this route but it's for an Electrician's program instead of an Electronics course. If I was in the Automated Control Technology course I would do this, but since it's basically just the entry level into being an Electrician, I wanted to try to have something where we could 'flip it' or open it in a way to show that all of the 'computing' was done only with the switches and wire connections to the lights.


I think that blackout is the name of the game. It's one of those puzzle games where you have to match all of the colors and it unlocks something, usually they're in video games where you press a button, and it turns the tiles next to it on or off, based on what they were before hand, and the goal is to either illuminate all the tiles, or turn them all off. In this case, I'm trying to have four lights be the lights you're shutting on and off, with the fifth light only being an indicator of when you've done it. I feel like by its nature, it might be something I can't do, to where it only has a single solution, but I wasn't sure because my math skills are at the level where i'm training to be an electrician.


It's hairy.

Sure.

"AC/DC Circuits I addresses the basics of direct and alternating current. This course addresses more complex theory such as Thevenin's and Norton's Theorems, inductive and capacitive reactance, impedance, and resonance, power factor, vectors, true power "

"An introductory course on residential wiring methods that includes practical applications and hands-on experience in implementing code requirements."

Components we've handled, and that I really have a firm grasp on go up to diodes but that's really it, we stopped before we discussed transistors, so from the basics we've covered what electricity is and its generation, so we can use, with relative ease

The class really covered the math of calculating the resistances for parallel and series circuits, how the relay works, the way power is transmitted from where it is generated to where it's needed, and things like that. Really it's just a step up from a highschool physics class but focused on electricity.

The event is targeting Juniors and Seniors, and it will be Junior and Senior classes [groups of 20-30 students from each school, broken into teams of 4 or 5] from around the region [within 60-90 miles]. The switch thing was just my idea, but I wasn't sure if it was feasible. I know that there could be a way to do it with resistors and LEDs to make it so that when you've successfully flipped all the switches so the RED are all off the path gives enough current to light GREEN, but I'd been trying to do the math for it, and kept getting lost. I was thinking a way to help me would be to write down all of the possible combination of switches and lights and try and solve from that


Something like that, to describe all the possible states of the lights, with the only solution for light 5 being something like "when switch 1 3 6 8 9 11 are ON, Light 5 is On " with 11 being the main power switch, like in the original pictures.

Also, now that i'm sitting here thinking of it, i'm realizing i might be able to have it so that my inputs and outputs are represented with 1's and 0's just to make it easy to mentally keep track, so like.

0000000000 > 11110
1010010110 > 00001

I'm not sure if that really makes it better for me, or worse.

damn op i'm too retarded to figure out what's going on. last time i see problem like this, it was written like this: How to turn on lamp in 1st AND 2nd floor FROM 1st floor and turn off all 1st floor lamp after you get into 2nd floor while keeping all lamp in 2nd floor turned on. you only given 120v AC source, wires, lightbulbs and switches.

what a sorcery

Attached: gimme.png (1190x906, 194.82K)

Are you saying I might be able to figure out how to do my switch mechanism if I work through an easier problem like that first? I'll give that a try, thanks user! I know that a lot of the time, solving harder problems IS easier, if you just break it down into pieces and tackle them one at a time. I'll try it today, and give some feed back in a few hours if I've figured anything out.

Switches in series form an AND gate, switches in parallel form an OR gate. For light 5 to turn on wire switches 1 3 6 8 9 and 11 in series. From example for light 3 since 4 is off and 7 is off light 3 will stay off. Only problem is you can't make a NOT gate with just switches or diodes and resistors (you need NOT operation for last switch, NC goes to directly to light 5, NO contact is then used to power other switches). You'll need a relay for that. Switches and a relay with NC contact form a functionally complete set of logical operators, which means you can implement any logical function you want. You won't be able to do logic like this with just resistors in series and parallel.

Attached: Oekaki.png (559x392, 8.34K)

Make a puzzle game using switches light bulbs and relays. Look to the book of projects for the amateur scientist from scientific american magazine, published late 1960's Here is the pdf. Start reading on page 377.

sciencemadness.org/library/books/projects_for_the_amateur_scientist.pdf

debounce some switches in hardware to demonstrate capacitors.

So which is it, OP? Something you're describing is very possible using relays, but you need to decide on what your materials are going to be first, and you're going back and forth, here.

If you want a schematic for something like this, unironically look up minecraft calculators and things - wiring something like this physically with light switches will be a FUCKING. NIGHTMARE. and you will need DOZENS and DOZENS of switches if you want to make even a simple 4x4 LED grid.

NO you will not be able to use only light switches to control the color temperature of LEDs unless you have analog I/O i.e. "get so many volts at the input, make them red, now make them blue," etc. but that will be so far detached from your audience that it will make no sense.


What you are describing is a truth table.

If you want something mildly fun and more accessible, grab you some small mag starters, some time-delay relays, and make either a sequential logic circuit, or a circuit where the relays pull in back and forth, and put lights on it everywhere you can.


Three and four way switching.

Thanks! I guess I wasn't being clear in my typing there, but I will use all the avalible materials which includes the relays and things. I'm going to use the resources

Provides, and proceed with the project from here. Now that I sort of 'realize' how I can use relays to accomplish what I want, I think I'm going to have a much easier time moving forward. It sort of clicked and I understand how to tackle the problem I was having. I appreciate the feedback and these are good tips for tackling problems I have in the future. The people that have replied to the thread have been incredibly helpful.


I think my teacher would like this too, and it's something I already know how to do! I'll do this too, to try and get people interested, even though the schools Electronics Program was canceled [Lack of interest]

You'll want to build up your own logic gates by using relays and it would be probably be better / easier to make this using buttons instead of switches I'm not sure how the game would even work using light switches. Look into flip flops for holding the state of whether a certain cell should be on or off.
A simple way of thinking of the implementation is having four buttons. There are the four display lights which are driven by a T flip flop. The output of these T flip flops are all ANDed together for the "winner light." You then wire up each of the buttons to three out of the four T fliop flops. The three a button is wired to are the three cells which should toggle when you select a location to flip.
I do want to note that you will need a clock for the T flip flop. Also if a button is pressed and the clock is fired twice the cell will be toggled twice. You can fix that by using a monostable multivibrator. This design will take something like 44 relays to make so make sure you have enough of them.

Other tips that can be useful are stealing motors from old appliances or even drill motors (or just mount a plug-in drill to something secure) so you can alternate between motors or whatever - if you have sensors available to you - photocells, inductive proximity switches, etc. using those can also be enticing.

May the next great mind rise

Attached: d45167a5b18c480e5dc927eeb2a5244fdcf4dd4efbee9a0a5a6849575b308979.jpg (1571x1065 17.29 KB, 1.76M)

[can't attach pics, because /tor/not-pedo, my glorious tzar country blocks 8ch]

to (OP):
man, i see you're using some shitty mobile "electronics simulator" thing, drop that! Pick a real man's NI MultiSim (better grab some 500MB "multisim portable 10.1"). From there go Ctrl+W>Search>SPDT or SPST or LED or RESISTOR_RATED. Shit is cash and helps A LOT in my analog circuitry design times. Also, what's time limit?

Back to topic question: as everyone already has pointed out:
0) use multisim for simulation [define button names for different switches to control them from your keyboard], pick 12V 1A power supply, auto light bulbs (1..2W max) or big ass visible d10mm leds (0.1W), lots of bulky ass switches;
1) a game of blackout;
2) a different variation of previous one, like only light up 1, 4 and 5th lamps (think of switches as logical "AND", "OR");
3) maybe coil power storage capabilities to create colorful sparks, protect with diodes;
4) also showcase RC-circuitry working, different times to switch on/off lamps;
5) since we're talking about circuitry calculus: EASY resistor divider for lamp (led power drop is much less visible for voltage drops, but you may go for some variables like constant current source f.e.);
6) may be showcase effects of electro-magnetic noise in uncoupled lines (like cell phone connection causing disturbances for nearby speakers or lamp spike change of intensity), grab oscilloscope;
7) showcase wires only transferring limited amount of current and heating like crazy (switches add wires to transfer more current, thus negating the effect), bring thermocouple reader or heat visor;
8) may be bring powerful wireless phone charger for those modern day cunts to stay longer?
9) ALSO! bring an "wi-fi signal amplifier", just a halved spam can, located around wi-fi router antenna and directed towards the crowd (be warned, its transmitting angle becomes less smaller, but instead power signal becomes much more powerful (about sqrt(2)).
10) from thread readings: grab a 3-pin 2-color leds (green, red, yellow if both) and go for another blackout game.
11) imagine something with general appliance mechanical timers (those found in "simple" microwave ovens or small-sized wash machines).

Generally it's almost impossible to grab attention of fags who already know about this topic, aren't curious enough or just too "badass" for such "bullshit". The only way is if you speak "their language" or are generally knowledgeable enough to speak one-on-one with a interested geek (one-on-ones are generally not advised if you wish to grab more people's attention).

Project has a 'due by' date of Nov 5, but earlier is better.

I think I've got it figured out. If I was looking at it right, this as only one set, where all the lights are off [should anyway], and it's controlled by switch 8, depending on if the other switches are set into the correct positions. So really the hidden goal is get all of the paths from switches 1 through 7 to go to 8, then to turn 8 off, but I think it effectively is the same game. It makes it so there are multiple solutions, but should still result in "Lights out" scenario.

Haven't assigned resistor values, and I adjusted the operation I wanted to accomplish. I haven't learned the Relay Logic system yet, and the resources online and linked, while very interesting, sort of befuddled me. (Bodes ill for my chosen career but I'm hoping that a more formal setting, and instruction from a dedicated instructor will help me understand it more easily.)

Thank you very much for the help, and if anything, giving me idea's of what to try, and where to go and other interesting things I can try to do. The idea of Relay logic and basic computing really interests me, but it feels a little confusing diving head first. I think this is the closing post on this thread. Thank you again for the assistance and the multitude of ideas and showcases.

I'll bring them up with the instructor, and hopefully with his help of what I want to accomplish, we can sit down and construct them and talk about the mechanism that makes it work and i'll get a better understanding, as well as a fun toy to show for it.

Attached: Flip it.png (1146x975, 45.87K)

I'm no electrical engineer, but I don't think you're supposed to have that much space in your schematic.

Attached: main-qimg-14a81e887d1c3a0d622a9f417d83b213.gif (2053x1676, 154.26K)

You're not, but I haven't gotten to plan reading yet, and this is so I can have it spread out and see it enough to follow my tracks a lot easier. If I was doing a more professional design instead of a quick and dirty "How can I make this work" I would have it tightened up, but you're right. There is too much open space, the amount should be minimized.

You would honestly be amazed at how much empty space there was on some old diagrams. Bell has hundreds of pages of schematics which are just a set of vertical lines with the names of the two pins the connect at the top and bottom. Generally it depends on what the purpose of the schematic is, and how much the company wanted to spend on printing.

I'm always amazed by the hand drawn digrams that fit their page so perfectly. I screw things up so much using computing tools, I can't imagine the pain of getting everything right and finally drawing out the 'master copy', only to find a mistake and need to do it again.