Script: Hello everyone, now you have learned about conductivity, series and parallel circuit and you understand how things light up. Today is the Light Up! Show where you will be using what you learned about circuits to create a hat that lights up. You will each be creating a hat and you will decide what the hat will look like and which circuit you will use to light it up. You will be working for a client that wants a hat that is attractive and that lights up. The materials available will be: colored tissue paper, construction paper, colored masking tape, led lights, copper tape, a battery and other decorative items.
Have a sampling of the materials on display for students to see it.
Students should sketch some ideas of how the hat will look like and where the lights will be placed on the hat. Tell students they are sketching ideas to answer the following questions:
Give students some time to explore the materials to figure out if they will work well with the ideas they sketched.
Then, have students gather the materials and work on building the structure of the hat.
After they finish the structure of the hat, students should design the circuit for the lights. Remind students to make sure that they consider the following:
Give students time to build their hats and to try them out and make sure they light up. If the hats don’t light up, they should revise their design and try again. Explain to them this is part of the engineering process, to try out ideas and when they don’t work, think about what you can change and try again to make it work.
Monitor students as they work on their projects. Ask questions such as:
Some of the issues with circuits not working can be that there is not a good connection between the copper tape or that there is no good contact between the lights and the copper tape. Refrain from trying to solve the problem for students but rather asking questions to guide them into solving it themselves.
Script: Each of you will be part of the parade to present your creation. You will need to explain what kind of circuit you used, how you built the hat and how it works. If there is extra time, you can talk about a difficulty that you encountered and how you solved them.
Give students a few minutes to jot down the following in preparation for the parade:
Host a parade where each student gets a chance to show the hat they created and explain how they built it, the circuit they used, how it works and share any difficulties they encountered and how they solved them.
Ask students to think how they could design another piece of clothing that could light up. They should create a drawing of this piece of clothing, specify the materials they would use and make sure to show the circuit with all its elements, including a power source, in their design.
Show the following video to show more applications of LED lights in fashion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxvBVvBWh4I (www.youtube.com/@LumenCouture)
After watching the video discuss with students:
Have students share something they learned about electricity, circuits, conductors and insulators, jobs in engineering and the engineering design process. Ensure each student shares by tossing the energy ball to the person sharing and have them pass it to the next person.
