Electronics
Circuits, semiconductors, signals and logic. Measure current and voltage to explore electronic circuits.
30 experiments
Times include reading the explanation and completing all six steps. Your pace may vary.
Kirchhoff's laws
Measure the direction and magnitude of branch currents where two sources meet. Add voltages around each loop to check energy conservation.
Voltage divider and potentiometer
Adjust the potentiometer position to control the output voltage. Find out why connecting a load changes it.
Battery internal resistance
Vary the load to measure terminal voltage and current and determine internal resistance.
Wheatstone bridge
Adjust the variable resistor to find the balanced condition where galvanometer current is zero.
Wire length, cross-section and resistivity
Change wire length and cross-section to compare resistance. Identical shapes can have different resistance depending on the material.
Power, Joule heating and fuses
Vary current and heating time to compare heating and the conditions that blow a fuse.
RC charging and discharging
Watch the voltage change gradually in a resistor-capacitor circuit. Measure the voltage at one time constant.
Parallel-plate capacitor
Change the plates and dielectric and compare charge and voltage with the battery connected or disconnected.
RL circuit and self-induction
Watch coil current lag and measure the time constant using resistance and inductance.
Electromagnet strength
Compare magnetic strength and pole direction as you change turns, current and the iron core.
DC motor
Watch the role of the commutator and how back EMF sets the rotational speed.
AC and RMS voltage
Compare mean heating under AC and DC to find the RMS voltage.
Oscilloscope measurements
Adjust the time and voltage scales and place cursors on the waveform. Use cursor spacing to measure the period and frequency.
Series RLC resonance
Sweep frequency to locate maximum current and examine the phase at resonance.
Transformer
Use the turns ratio to check how voltage, current and transferred power change.
Power transmission losses
Keep input power fixed and compare losses at different transmission voltages and wire sizes.
Diode current–voltage characteristics
Apply voltage to a diode and series resistor and record the actual device voltage and current. Compare forward and reverse bias.
Rectification and smoothing
Compare half-wave and full-wave outputs and the ripple reduction caused by a smoothing capacitor.
LED colors and the Planck constant
Find and record the turn-on voltage for each LED color. Estimate the Planck constant from the slope of threshold voltage against frequency.
Transistor switch
Use a small base current to control the load and distinguish cutoff, active and saturation regions.
BJT amplifier
Change bias and input amplitude to observe inverted amplification and clipping.
Light sensor and automatic streetlight
Adjust ambient illumination and reference resistance to set a streetlight that switches on in darkness.
Thermistor thermometer
Build a temperature-resistance calibration curve and infer temperature from measured voltage.
Operational amplifier
Set gain using resistor ratios and find when output clips at the supply rails.
RC filters and frequency response
Compare low-pass and high-pass filters using frequency response and input/output waveforms.
Logic gates
Toggle inputs and record logic gate outputs. Change NAND wiring to build AND, OR and NOT gates.
Binary adder
Connect half and full adders to check 4-bit addition and carry propagation.
Flip-flops and counters
Compare latch memory, rising-edge flip-flops and the cycle of a 4-bit counter.
ADC sampling and quantization
Separate sampling and quantization errors and check whether slow sampling reveals a different frequency.
PWM brightness and speed control
Vary duty cycle and frequency to compare pulses, mean voltage and load response.