Session 1 · DESIGN: Discover
Black box detectives
- 10 minHook: a mystery box with a button and a light. Press it. What must be inside? Draw your guess.
- 20 minTake apart a battery toy or torch (batteries out). Sort the parts into input, process and output.
- 15 minSystems hunt: list things that switch on by themselves. Write each as input → process → output.
- 5 minMeet the three contexts. Pick the one you most want to solve and say why.
Session 2 · DESIGN: Explore
Circuits and symbols
- 10 minLearn the symbols: cell, battery, switch, LED, resistor, motor, buzzer, wire. Match cards.
- 25 minBuild a circuit with a battery pack, switch and LED with a resistor. Then draw it with standard symbols.
- 10 minConductor or insulator? Test ten objects in a gap in your circuit.
- 5 minExit card: what does a closed circuit need?
Getting started
Start with a battery, a bulb or LED and two clip leads; add the switch second.
Stretch
Build two LEDs in series and then in parallel. Compare the brightness and explain the difference.
Checkpoint
A working switched circuit and a matching circuit diagram drawn with standard symbols.
Activities for this week
- Black box detectives: What is really inside a simple electronic gadget, and what does each part do?
- First circuit, drawn properly: Can you build a circuit and draw it so anyone in the world could rebuild it?
Useful this week
- Remote monitoring of traps ↗ How real trap sensors tell volunteers when a trap has fired.
- Alfred William (Bill) Gallagher ↗ The Waikato inventor whose electric fence changed farming.
- Electricity: electrons, insulators and conductors ↗ Why some materials let current flow and others stop it.
- Resistors ↗ How resistors control current, with colour codes explained.