Dancepad and LightstationBy: Sam Gravois

Understand- Task: Build an 11x17 inch dancepad attached to a lightstation that flashes when you step on the switches using the following...

• 6V Lantern Battery

• Aluminum foil

• four light bulbs

• 2 11 x 17-inch sheets of corrugated cardboard

• Duct tape

• Electrical wire (22-gauge works well)

• Plastic wrap

• Scissors

• Wire strippers

Explore

Using a circuit simulation website on http://phet.colorado.edu, we learned things like to use aluminum foil to touch the wires together in order to turn it on and how the battery should connect to the lights

Define

The specifications provided outlined that we should have- Switch 1 must illuminate light 1- Switch 2 must illuminate light 2- Switch 3 must illuminate light 3- Switch 4 must illuminate light 4- Switch 5 must illuminate lights 1 and 4- Switch 6 must illuminate lights 1,2,3,4

IdeateHere are our brainstorming sketches

Schematic diagram Switch and Board Model

Prototype

- Our prototypes for this project were done by revising the project instead of remaking it entirely

- We used the materials given to us by Mr. Rod

- We realized we would need individual switches for the buttons with multiple lights

Refine

- At this point, we had a working dancepad and lightstation but it wasn’t visually appealing- We decided to cover the switches with paper to hide exposed wire and label them with their correct number

Solution

This was the completed version of our light station and dancepad. It worked correctly with the lights illuminating upon the pressing of their corresponding button, however the lights on the light station were not in numerical order (it went light 3,4,1,2)

(Picture on next slide)

How it works

- The dancepad works by allowing each switch to turn on and off the light simply by stepping on it. This puts each side of the aluminum foil together connecting the two wires to complete the circuit

- Switch 1, 2, 3 and 4 each have wires running from the battery to the aluminum foil, and from the aluminum foil to the light, then back to the battery

- Switch 5 illuminates lights 1 and 4 so it has a total of 4 of these wires, 2 for each light

- Switch 6 illuminates all the lights 1-4 so it has a total of 8 wires, 2 for each light

If we would do it again

-We would sandwhich all wire (instead of half) beneath the top board and on top of the bottom board to make it look better- We would wire the lights so they could be ordered 1, 2, 3, 4