Energy and Power in Circuits 4/16/2014

NO FIESTA TODAY???  AWWWWW~  After recovering from the feeling of disappointment by not having the highly anticipated fiesta, we started the class by going back to series-parallel circuits.

We were to hook up the battery & light bulb setup both in the series and parallel configuration.  We used the ammeter to find the current and voltage based on the different settings on this sophisticated tool.

We found some properties as follows as the fundamentals in circuit analysis:

In series, the voltage of the source is the sum of those in the resistors while the current stays constant.  In parallel, the voltage stays constant while the current is the sum.

Finally, the main attraction of the day was the introduction to resistors.  Prof Mason thoroughly explained how to interpret these cheap little bad boys.

Two different types of resistors with different cross-sectional area, the number of bands, and material (metal film v.s. carbon).
depending on

 Decoding the bands starting from the opposite side of tolerance band.

Real-life modeling of the diagrams

It is similar to an analogy to water running through pipes, when the resistors are in parallel, (the pipes doubles) more current can flow through and therefore, overall resistance goes down.  When the resistors are in series, the current has to pass through both so the overall resistance goes up (sum of the resistors).

Principles of resistivity 

Complex diagrams of resistors circuits

We were then given another circuit to practice and apply loop rules.  Based on Kirchhoff's laws, the voltage sum of every loop much be zero, we can then compute the three unknown currents.

Kirchhoff's Law of junction and sum of V =0

Elias computed using matrix??? maaan~ he OWNed those of us that used substitution!!!

Last but not least, we got hands on to build the circuit on a breadboard.  We needed to measure the currents and compare them to our values; however, we ran out of time.....