Technology – Switches (Part 4)

I have all my materials ready, so I am ready to hot-glue everything and finish it!

For my first switch, I need to hot-glue my pieces of cardboard together onto the base. First I hot-glue the sides on the base, and connect it with my top. I use a straw and attach it to a rubber band with hot-glue, so that the popsicle stick can have resistance. I use the breadboard to make sure it all works, and it does!

For my second switch, I just need to glue a straw to the base and glue another straw to my popsicle stick. Then I use a rubber band to attach them together, and that’s it!

For my last switch, I need to hot-glue my cardboard sides that will keep my button in place. Then I hot-glue the pom-poms to the base, and glue my push button to the pom-poms. And this (thankfully) worked!

Finally, it is the day to play the game. I didn’t get to go, but someone else at my table did, and I got to be one of the people who flips the cards. The way to play was one player attached their switches to alligator clips, which was connected to lights that would go on and off when the player used their switch. Then there would be a deck of cards split in two piles, and a card would be flipped from each pile at a time by two people. If the card on the left is red and the other is black, then the obstacle would be on the right and the player would press their switch on the right. If the card on the left is black and the other is red, then the player would do the opposite, which is press their right switch. If both cards are red, then the player presses the switch in the middle. A person would time how fast the player is able to react to the cards.

After finishing this game, we were done with our unit. Although I didn’t get to play with my switches, it was still fun interacting and participating in the game, and I learned how to make three different working switches!