Visualizing Resisitor-Capacitor Circuits
Lesson Details
What are capacitors and their effect on a circuit? Why does an LED’s brightness vary slowly due to capacitor charging and discharging?
Activities:
- Making an RC circuit and visualizing the charging and discharging of a capacitor on evive's mini oscilloscope.
- Duration: 60 Minutes
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Grade: 8th, 9th, 10th
Curriculum: Electronics for Kids – Level 2
Classroom Bundle Used: STEM Classroom Bundle, STEM Mini Classroom Bundle
Prerequisites: LED Circuit with Switch and Potentiometer
Download Resources
Lesson Overview
Students will learn the following things:
- What is a capacitor?
- What is a capacitor made up of?
- How does a capacitor work?
- Activity: Visualizing RC (Resistor-Capacitor) charging and discharging circuits on evive mini-oscilloscope?
Material Required
1 set of the following material per group of 3-5 students:
| Component | Image | Quantity | Available in Bundle |
|---|---|---|---|
| evive |  | 1 | |
| Male to Female Jumper Cable 20cm |  | 10 | |
| Male to Male Jumper Cable 20cm |  | 10 | |
| Pushbutton |  | 1 | |
| Capacitor |  | 1 | |
| 10 kOhm Resistor |  | 1 |
Lesson Outline
Capacitor - 10 minutes
- What is a capacitor?
- What it is made up of?
- The polarity of a capacitor – Anode and Cathode.
How capacitor works? - 20 minutes
- How does a capacitor charge in a circuit?
- Capacitor charging voltage graph.
- How does a capacitor discharge in a circuit?
- Capacitor discharging voltage graph.
Visualizing RC Circuits - 30 minutes
- Make the RC circuit.
- Visualise RC charging voltage variation on evive mini oscilloscope.
- Visualise RC discharging voltage variation.
