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!

Finally after I was done with my second switch, I began to work on my third switch. At last! I decided to do a very simple switch because I was running out of time, so I decided to make a push button. A lot of people were making pushing switches, except they attached the push to a swing with rubber bands, because they needed some sort of resistance and a swing gives that. Their design was so that you had to push the swing down onto the base where there was tinfoil, and that’s how the switch worked. However, I wanted to make a different design. Instead of using rubber bands as resistance, I wanted to put my push button on something that would go up and down…. I thought for a while, thinking what could act as resistance. I was browsing through different materials, then I found what I was looking for! A pom-pom would be perfect! I cut out a piece of cardboard for the push button, and put two pom-poms on each end. Then, I used two pieces of cardboard on each side so the push button would stay in place. Finally I put tinfoil over the parts, and I was a ready to hot-glue everything together!

After I was finished with my first switch, I moved on to brainstorming my second switch. I wanted something you could slide across, so I designed a popsicle stick wrapped in tinfoil. I designed a rubber band that would be attached to the base and connected to the popsicle stick for resistance. Then I cut out a base, and covered it in tinfoil. I gathered my materials, so I was ready to hot-glue.

We started a unit on switches which was related to atoms and electricity. We would make three working switches to play a game. Each switch was supposed to be different, so I not only wanted to meet the expectations, but I also wanted to make three original switches. My first idea that came into mind was like a standard switch, and it would have a rubber band attached for resistance. I decided my switch would be inside a box. I began measuring out the proportions of the box, and used a popsicle stick for the switch, then I cut a hole in the box for the switch. Finally, I wrapped everything in tinfoil so that the switch would work. Then I before I hot-glued everything together, I tested this on a breadboard… and it worked!

I decided not to hot-glue it yet, because I wanted to hot-glue all my switches together.