Lantern Challenge

THIS WAS SO AWESOME!

Hey guys!

So we made a lantern out of an LED. Well, it turned out much more like a flashlight for me. Essentially, the challenge was to hook an LED into a simple circuit (4th grade electricity fair coming back to me) (I actually used the paperclip technique from fourth grade :P) and then make it look pretty. So fun!

Quick sketch of my device:

That's basically how it looks, with a lot more colored tape :). In the future, I should probably make a sketch BEFORE I make the product, but it was just so fun to mess around with...

Anyway, one other note is that I used a paperclip to elongate one of the wires connected to the LED, and that you connect the circuit by pressing the paperclip to the other LED wire connection. It is all, of course, covered up by tape :). 

So, what do you use this lantern for? Well, not as a lantern, because LEDs produce pretty diffuse light to begin with. I decided to focus it by putting it in a toilet paper roll, so it's now a flashlight. A very weak flashlight (LEDs don't produce a ton of light), but a nice flashlight, because the cardboard is thick enough (unlike paper) to keep the beam pretty focused. 

It also ended up that when I attached the battery, it was heavy enough to balance the whole flashlight! And that made it look like a cannon. So it is a cannon ball light, and is labeled as such. 

Anyway, here's a diagram of my circuit (yes, very simple circuit :)) and how I calculated the resistor ohm value... (ps, some people in my class haven't done this before! I've done it in 4th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade, so it wasn't a problem.) 

Anyway, it was super fun designing and building this thing, mainly because I didn't take any time to design it :). I was looking for something to focus the beam with, and tried paper first, but the light kept shining through the paper. Then I tried cardboard, which was thick enough, but I was having a hard time bending the cardboard to fit into a cone. Then I found a toilet paper roll, and I was set! I was hoping for a cone initially, but this works pretty well, since a cone would have diffused the light too much. Then I built the circuit, soldered the resistors together (I accidentally added too many resistors-- 290 ohms instead of 270 ohms-- which will actually make my light a little dimmer than maximum. However, it'll last longer (though LEDs last FOREVER), so it's all good :). (Also note: if you add too little resistance, your light will be brighter, but you may burn out the bulb.))

Then I taped everything up and decorated. The pink decoration stuff actually took the longest out of everything :). This was super fun though-- let's do it again!

And the final product :)

If you press the Fire! light, the circuit will be connected :)

 Yay!

Monica