During our first full day we got a basic understanding of Ohm’s Law and the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance. We built and explored wired breadboards and series and parallel circuits with resistors and light emitting diodes (LEDs).
We learned how to solder wired circuits together as well as PCBs (printed circuit boards).
We discussed how solar cells generated electricity and created our own by heating a copper sheet and making a cuprous oxide semiconductor out of it. We then made a solar cell by putting the cuprous oxide copper sheet on one side and an untreated copper sheet opposite it in a container of salt water. We generated 0.0647 volts when the sun hit it.
After lunch we built solar box ovens. Hopefully we can test them out Monday and see how hot they get.