Julia Rodriguez Nolan Slagle Dance Mania Julia Rodriguez Nolan Slagle

Understand The goal of this project was to make a prototype of a dance pad and a light station. Working in pairs of two, one person would make the dance pad and the other do the light station. Both parts should connect with a circuit system and work effectively. Nolan did the light box and Julia completed the dance pad. The project rubric tells us that the dance pad will work as a switch and the light station will light up when the switch is closed.

Explore By using a phet.colorado.edu simulation we explored making circuits. It took several tries in order to get a working circuit that included all the lights and pads or switches that we needed. We also researched diodes which make electrical current flow only one way and incorporated that into our design.

Define We were required to have four light bulbs and six switch which include a pad where all lights turn on and a pad where two lights turn on. All the lights are required to light up when the pad is pressed on. The entire project has to be aesthetically pleasing and not messy. We were to make this out of cardboard, aluminum foil, wires, 4 tiny light bulbs, a 6 volt battery and whatever else was necessary to complete the project.

Ideate At first we tried designs without diodes and the wiring kept flowing too many ways, this is when we decided to use the diodes so that the electricity could only flow one way.

Prototype This is our design for our final prototype. The only difference between this prototype and the others is that this one has the diodes.

Refine Our product took a while to connect all the wires together, and during the process some of the connections came loose and we had to reconnect them with the electrical tape. Our design had no flaws and did not have to be refined. Once it worked we made our product aesthetically pleasing by using colored paper.

Solution This is our final product.

Solution This is the wiring under the dance pad that makes a switch when it is pressed down on and the foil touches. These are the wires from the dance pad going into the light box where the circuit is to then turn on the lights.

Video This is the link to the video of our working product. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIsI4 DQ9iPU&feature=youtu.be