It was a different experience, entering class and getting organized into groups without knowing just exactly what we were supposed to do. Then, we were given ping pong balls with metals strips on it and a white envelope filled with smiley faced instructions. During the beginning of the experiment, we were all thinking maybe our fingers were the sources of electricity to make the energy ball light up and make noise, perhaps having both positive and negative charges on our fingers. However, it didn’t work when two different people touched the energy ball at once. It was not until one member of the group put the energy ball onto a circular metal ring that the group came to the hypothesis that a conductor was needed to let the ball light. I suppose hands–on work really is just experimenting without any ideas until something just hits you straight in the face. I guess the purpose of the assignment was to figure everything out by ourselves rather than getting spoon-fed from the textbook.
Also learned two new definitions:
- Series Circuit: a series having its parts connected serially
- Parallel Circuit: a closed circuit in which the current divides into two or more paths before recombining to complete the circuit
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