Download Building and Testing

Building and Testing
Series and Parallel Circuits
Purpose: In this activity you will be building and testing series and parallel circuits via computer simulation.
Make sure that you carefully read and follow the instructions. This will save you time and aggravation.
Materials:
1. Instruction sheet
2. Pencil
3. Scrap paper
4. Calculator
5. Computer attached to the Internet
Procedure:
1. Gather the appropriate materials before Type the following Internet address into your computer:
http://www.article19.com/shockwave/oz.htm
2. Once at the site click on:
*The Ohm Zone Shockwave Applet - Build Series & Parallel Circuits
3. Your screen is almost completely black and you will observe that there is a series of icons in the
lower left corner of the screen. These icons control the appearance and behavior of your of your
experiment. (Figure 1)
Figure 1
Figure 2
4. On the right side of your screen is a combination Ammeter, voltmeter, circuit board and assorted
parts such as wires, a battery, bulbs and switches. (Figure 2)
5. Click once on the visualize and popups buttons.
6. Now move your cursor over each of the buttons.
a. What do you observe?
b. What button caused this to happen?
7. Click on the hand and a menu appears. (Figure 3)
8. You are to work on the following 3 activities:
a. Building a series circuit
b. Building a parallel circuit
c. Ohm’s Law
Figure 3
Analysis:
1. Building a series circuit
a. Using electrical symbols from your circuit diagram notes sketch the circuit.
b. How many different paths can the electricity take through the circuit?
c. What happens to your circuit if you take a light bulb out? Thus, what can you conclude about
the current if there is a break anywhere in the circuit?
d. What “object” does the electricity encounter after it leaves this battery?
e. How much resistance does the electricity encounter as it passes through the “object”? Place the
hand on top of the object and a pop-up will appear with the information.
f. How much current is flowing through the 1st bulb? The 2nd bulb? The wire? The battery?
g. Build a series circuit containing four bulbs. What happens to the amount of current flowing
through the circuit as bulbs are added?
h. What can you conclude about the current in a series circuit as you add more bulbs?
i. What can you conclude about the voltage in a series circuit as you add more bulbs?
2. Building a parallel circuit
a. Using electrical symbols from your circuit diagram notes sketch the circuit.
b. What happens to the electricity at point “A” in the circuit?
c. What happens to the electricity at point “B” in the circuit?
d. After you remove one of the light bulbs, what happened to the second bulb?
e. Reassemble the circuit and remove the bulb that was originally left in the circuit. Did you obtain
the same results?
f. Compare the voltage drop across each bulb. Are they the same or different?
g. How much current is leaving the battery?
h. Measure the current flowing through each bulb. Does the sum of these currents equal the sum
of the current leaving the battery?
i. Does the sum in g above equal the current flowing back into the battery?
3. Ohm’s Law
a. What is the voltage of the battery?
b. What is the current running through the circuit?
c. Calculate the resistance of the light bulb using Ohm’s Law.
d. Construct the series circuit below and sketch the circuit using the proper symbols:
A
B
C
F
E
D
e. What is the voltage drop of the first light bulb? What is the current running through the first
light bulb? Using Ohm’s Law calculate the resistance of the light bulb.
f. Measure the voltage drop across AB, BC, CD, DE, and EF.
Location
Voltage Drop
(V)
AB
BC
CD
DE
EF
Total Voltage
What can you conclude about the voltage across each part of a series circuit?
g. Construct the parallel circuit below and sketch the circuit using the proper symbols:
Series and Parallel Circuits
Name:_______________________________________Date:___________Period:______
Building a series circuit
1)_____________________________________________________________________
b)_____________________________________________________________________
c)_____________________________________________________________________
d)_____________________________________________________________________
e)_____________________________________________________________________
f)_____________________________________________________________________
g)_____________________________________________________________________
Building a parallel circuit
2a)_____________________________________________________________________
b)_____________________________________________________________________
c)_____________________________________________________________________
d)_____________________________________________________________________
e)_____________________________________________________________________
f)_____________________________________________________________________
g)_____________________________________________________________________
h)_____________________________________________________________________
Ohm’s Law
3a_____________________________________________________________________
b)_____________________________________________________________________
c)_____________________________________________________________________
e)_____________________________________________________________________
f)_____________________________________________________________________
h)_____________________________________________________________________
i) ___________________________________________________________________________________