Lesson video

Hello.

My name is Mrs. Bishop and I will be your Design and Technology teacher in today's lesson.

We are studying a unit called Electronics, Simple Switches, and Circuits.

This is lesson number seven of 10.

And today we're going to learn to design, make, and test components for an electrical system.

Please make sure that you are in a safe and quiet place so that we can begin.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some paper.

You will also need a pencil to write and draw with.

In this lesson you will also need some of the following pieces of equipment.

You may need some cardboard.

This can be simple cardboard that you have from around your home.

You will need some split pins which you can see in the image here.

You may need some paper clips.

You might also need some tinfoil, some bulldog clips, or some coins.

Pause the video now to gather those resources.

In today's lesson, we will start with our intro quiz.

Well done for completing that.

If you need to, you could always pause the video and go and complete it now.

First today, we're going to look again at electrical components and recap all of the things that we have learned in previous lessons.

Then we're going to look at how we can actually make some of our own electrical components today.

After that, we're going to test the electrical components to see how well they work.

And finally today, I would like you to complete your exit quiz.

In today's lesson there are some keywords.

I will say each keyword and I would like you to repeat it after me.

I'll also read a definition of the keyword.

The first keyword is toggle switch.

Can you say toggle switch? A toggle switch is a simple on and off switch.

Our next word is push-to-break switch.

Can you say push-to-break switch? A push-to-break switch is off while the button is pushed but it returns to its on position when the button is released.

Our next keyword is push-to-make switch.

Can you say push-to-make switch? A push-to-make switch is turned on when you push the button.

This input makes the electricity flow through the circuit, but when you release it, the circuit is broken and the switch is off.

I wonder if you could remember what we have been designing and making within this unit? Pause the video now to remind yourself of the nightlight that you are designing and making.

Who is your user and what is your purpose? Welcome back.

I hope you remembered what you're designing and making.

Who is the user of your nightlight going to be? What is the purpose? Brilliant! I think you're doing a really great job of designing and making your nightlight so far.

I'm ready looking forward to seeing the finished outcome.

And I'm very proud of the work that you've done so far.

Remember that we've learned lots before.

We have learned that we are going to design and make a battery operated nightlight.

We looked at lots of things about electrical safety and how you must stay safe when using electricity.

We also investigated other electrical products.

We developed that design criteria thinking about our user and what the purpose of our nightlight will be.

And we looked at how to sketch electrical circuits using sketching, and also by using computer simulation.

We also last time began to generate and collect ideas for designs of our nightlights.

And some of us decided to make some prototypes or some of us decided to sketch some ideas.

Some of us decided to investigate and find out more about current nightlights and more information about what we are designing.

Let's begin by recapping some things that we found out about electrical component.

Oh, I wonder first of all if you can match the component to its name.

Pause the video now and give that a go.

Welcome back, let's look at the answers.

That's right, this one is the battery holder.

This one is the batteries.

And this picture is a picture of wires.

Wonder this time if you can match the component to its name again.

Pause the video to give it a go.

Welcome back, let's look at the answers.

This is the bulb.

This is the crocodile clip.

This is the bulb holder.

Well done.

Now we're going to look at making our own electrical components.

And in particular today, we're going to look at how we can make our own switches as you use those to control the output of our electrical nightlight.

So let's look at them together.

So we've got three different types of electrical switches that we've been looking at within this unit.

We've a simple toggle switch which turns the electrical device on or off.

We then have a push-to-make switch.

Now, this one works is when, when we hold down the button on the switch that means that we're actually making the circuit so electricity can flow.

Whenever we release the button, the circuit is broken.

And the electricity is off.

And then this is often used in things like doorbells or in calculator buttons.

It's only whenever we push the button and hold it down that the electrical current can flow, producing an output.

This may be useful in our nightlights.

There's another type of switch here which is called a push-to-break switch.

And it's the opposite of a push-to-make switch.

When the button is not pressed, the electricity flows and it flows through the system causing the output to keep on going.

But when we push the button.

, the switch has actually then breaks the circuit so that the electricity cannot flow.

I think about things like the fridge light.

Whenever we open the door, the fridge light is on.

When we close the door of the fridge, we push the push-to-break switch causing the electricity to go off.

And that means then that we're not wasting electricity.

We don't need the light on, on the inside of the fridge.

Now in today's lesson, we're actually going to be thinking about making our own switches for our nightlights.

So think carefully about the type of nightlight that you are designing and making.

What sort of switch might your product actually need? Why might we actually need to investigate different switches? What are the pros and cons of each switch for your prototype nightlight? How do you think about those questions? Now we are going to start designing and making our own switches.

It's easy to make your own switches.

Let's start with looking at this simple on off toggle switch.

I'm going to show you how I made this one.

So first of all, I need a piece of cardboard.

And this is going to be used for the outside of the switch.

And normally the outside of a switch is a type of electrical insulator, like plastic or cardboard.

And it does not allow electricity to flow easily through it.

That protects the user from electricity.

To make this simple switch, what we will need to do is we need to get two split pins like these ones.

Now we need one paper clip.

I'm going to show you how I make the switch.

And what we need to look at the back here.

Can you see here that the split pins, we're going to push them through the cardboard and then separate them or split them.

And these are going to be used as our connectors in our electrical circuit.

So to do that, what I do normally is I use a pen or a pencil to poke a hole in the cardboard.

Make sure an adult is nearby as you do this.

And now we've got two holes in our cardboard.

The next thing we do is we push through the split pins through the holes like this.

Push it through.

And on the back we're going to split the two legs of the pin and we're going to now have somewhere to connect up those wires, okay? And repeat the same for the next split pin.

And again, split the pin, so now we've got our connectors where we can connect the electricity to.

So we can connect the leads or the wires to this side.

And we can connect the other leads or wires to this side.

Now, we just need our switch.

We're going to use the paperclip for that.

And all you need to do is put it over one of the split pins on this side, and you can move this switch so it's closed and so that it's open again.

When it's closed, the electricity can go from this connector to this connector and flow around the circuit.

But when the switch is open, that cannot happen.

That's the first example of a switch.

The second type of switch I can make is called a pressure switch.

And this works whenever a user puts pressure on the outside of the switch and the two parts on the inside to touch.

And that helps the switch to be on, helping electricity to flow through the circuit.

These are often used, when you go into a shop and you notice that the shop doors open, and that's because you stepped on the pressure switch making the circuit complete, and then forming the output of making movement so the doors can open.

So to make this pressure switch you will need some cardboard for the outside of the switch, which is electrical insulators.

That will stop any user from getting electric shock.

And you also need some aluminium foil or tin foil.

And these are really good electrical conductors.

Then they're going to be contained inside of the switch.

And when these two pieces touch, that will help the electricity to flow.

But whenever there's no pressure applied to the switch then the electricity cannot flow.

So the switch switches off and the circuit is broken.

So then we're just going to use some or some glue stick to stick it well onto our cardboard.

And then all we need to do for this switch is we need to fold it over so that the two pieces of tinfoil touch, and now we have simple pressure switch.

And whenever we push down here, put pressure on this part of the switch, the switch is closed, or whenever there's no pressure on the switch, the switch is open.

Here I can show you what a real life pressure switch might look like.

And this could be a more advanced design that you could do today.

Now I want to pull apart this switch so you can see how I made it.

I've used three pieces of cardboard and two pieces of tin foil.

Let me show you what's on the inside of the switch.

So on this side of the cardboard I have stuck one piece of tinfoil.

Then the other side, what I've done is I have stuck a piece of tinfoil onto this piece of cardboard here, like that.

And then this piece of cardboard is going to separate the connectors.

So whenever the switch isn't pressed, the cardboard keeps the two connectors or the two pieces of tin foil separate.

Whenever we put pressure on that middle bit, this part will push down and touch this side, making the circuit on.

Let's assemble the switch again like this.

So now when we put pressure onto this part of the switch the two pieces of tin foil will touch and that will turn the output on.

But when we take the pressure off, the switch is off and the output will be off, too.

Can you think where that switch might be used? The next switch I could make is a slider switch using some coins as connectors.

For this switch, I need some silver coins and I need some pieces of cardboard for the outside of my switch.

Again, cardboard is a really good electrical insulator.

So when the user uses it, they will only touch the cardboard and the conductors, in this case, the coins will be inside the switch that will not cause an electric shock to the user.

So they might want to use this switch and my nightlight design.

So let me show you how I make it.

So I'm going to stick one coin to the back of this piece of cardboard And I'm going to turn it over and now I can see here, this is the switch.

and this is going to be the bit that slides on the top.

But I also need to put this coin onto this part of the switch.

And now, what I can do is I can use this part as a slider switch.

So whenever the slider is here, the coins are not touching.

So the switch is off.

But as I slide it over, then the coins are touching, the two conductors are touching.

So electricity can be conducted.

So the circuit will be on and the output will work.

And as I slide it over, it will still work until here.

The coins are no longer touching.

So the circuit is broken and the switch is off.

And the output be off too.

Another type of switch I could make is using bulldog or binder clips.

Let me show you how to make this one.

For this type of switch, you'll need a piece of cardboard and you'll also need some bulldog or binder clips.

All you need to do is attach one clip to this side of the cardboard, and one clip to this side of the cardboard.

Now, at the minute, this is going to be an open, an open circuit, 'cause the switch is open.

But all we need to do is close over each of these parts of the binder clips and now they're touching.

So the electricity can flow from this side through here to this side completing the circuit.

We can now test our electrical component.

You're going to test the switches that we made.

Why might we need to do this? Why is it important that we test these switches we made? How might we test the switches? And how will this help us to choose the right switch? We can test the switches using an electrical circuit.

So here I've got a battery and I've attached it to a bulb.

And I'm just going to test, does it work? So when I connect up all of the wires, it should work okay? And.

So the light is working.

So I know that my electrical circuit works.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to attempt to test my switches that I have made today.

So I've got my power source.

I've got my output.

And I'm going to use as switches as my input.

Let's start with this switch first.

So I'm going to connect.

I'm going to close the switch first I'm going to connect my battery to one side of the switch.

And I'm going to connect my light bulb to the other side of the switch to create a complete circuit.

And now, when I close my switch, I can see that my light bulb lights up.

The test says that, that works.

Will that be the correct type of switch to use in my nightlight? Do you have to switch where it goes on and off like this? You have to think about that.

Now, let's test my next type of switch, the pressure switch, which is a push-to-make type of switch because I have to put pressure onto the switch to make a circuit work.

So let's see what happens then.

Again, I'm going to connect to one side of the switch to my battery or my power source.

And I'm going to connect the other side of the switch to the light bulb, completing a whole loop or a whole circuit.

And again, let's see what happens when I push together the switch, and I connect up the two connectors, turning the light on.

I want to take the pressure away.

The switch turns off and that's a push-to-make switch.

The next type of switch I made was the slider switch.

And again, let's test to see if it works.

I'm going to connect one side of the switch to the battery, the power source.

And I'm going to connect the other side of the switch to the light bulb.

And when the switch is here the circuit is off so the light bulb is off, but let's see what happens as I move the slider across.

Can you see now that the light bulb lights up until I move it all the way across until the connectors or the coins are no longer touching.

Again, think about it, would that be the type of switch that you want to use in your nightlight? Let's test the bulldog or binder clips switch now.

So again, I want to connect up each side of my switch to the power source and to the output, the light bulb.

We connect that side to the battery, or power source.

Let's connect this side to the output, the bulb.

And again, this switch is currently closed but I can turn it on and off using that simple action.

Might that be the type, the right type of switch for you and your nightlight design? What do you think your user would want or require? Now, I want you to make and test your own switches.

I want you to experiment with materials, techniques, and ideas to make switches that operate in different ways.

Think about which switch would be best for the user of your night light, or for the function of your nightlight.

Pause the video now to complete your tasks.

Welcome back.

I hope that you have enjoyed experimenting with different materials and techniques today to make electrical components.

I hope that you've found out which switch will be best for your electrical nightlight.

I'm very proud of the work that you have done today, and I'd actually really love to see it.

So if you can, please ask an adult or carer to please share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational, and #LearnwithOak.

I would be thrilled to see the work that you have been doing.

In the meantime, I hope you stay happy and safe, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Goodbye!.