02/23/2016 Solderless Breadboards, Open and Short Circuits Lab

It's the first day of class. We did some in-class activities, haphazardly speculating whether lights on a circuit got brighter or dimmer without applying Kirchoff's Laws. We also established relations, such as P=Vi=V^2/R=I^2*R, i = dq/dt, E = Pdt, etc., and did examples on these. Unfortunately, I thought we only took pictures of them to keep an example, and didn't know we needed to upload those pictures onto the blog, so therefore that duty was neglected.

We did, however, do a lab, simply to discover how breadboards worked. We connected various configurations and recorded resistances, indicating whether it was an open or short circuit. An open circuit should theoretically approach infinite; or in this case, register as '0L' (for overload) on the Multimeter. Short circuits, on the other hand, must register a very low resistance.

In the first task, we connected leads to two holes on the same row. Since the rows (on the same side) are connected within the breadboard, this creates a short circuit, registering 1.3 ohms.

In the second task, we connected leads to different sides on the same row. However, since the rows on opposite sides are not connected, this creates an open circuit, registering 0L.

In the third task, we connected leads to two arbitrary holes of different rows. Similarly, since different rows are not connected, this creates an open circuit, registering 0L.

Finally, we connected leads to different rows, but used a jumper wire to connect the rows. Obviously, since there is a connection now between the rows, this creates a short circuit, registering 4.5 ohms.