Playdough Circuits!

We had some fun this week with basic circuits and conductors. We have done these a few times in the last couple of years and they are great fun.

This week we used playdough as our conductor. Our circuit looks a little complicated as we hooked our playdough up to a battery pack that we were already using in an earlier project (a bit of improvisation during this lockdown!) We also used an LED light we had from another project. It worked but it was pretty hard to see as the sun was shining but hopefully if you look closely you can see the little glow.

For this project you will need:

A conductor (play dough, citrus fruit and poatoes work well!)

Alligator clips or wires

An LED light

A battery pack or a 9 volt battery

Start with two lumps of playdough. For the circuit to work you need to attach the negative wire from the battery to one piece of playdough and the positive wire from the battery to the other piece. Next take your LED light. Note that the legs of the light are slightly different lengths. The shorter leg is the negative side, the longer leg is the positive side. To make the LED light up the positive leg of the LED must be in the positive lump of playdough and the negative leg in the negative lump of playdough. Note, if the lumps of playdough touch there will be a short circuit and the light will not light up.

Have fun experimenting!