This is Engineers Week and today Bernie Mullins an electrical engineer came to visit the school as part of the STEPS school visits programme. She introduced herself and explained her background to the pupils. She showed them a powerpoint about engineers and the work of engineers. She explained that there are loads of things in our day-to-day life, which have been designed by engineers.
Then the pupils took part in 3 experiments.
(1) The first one was to make a torch with wires and a light bulb.
(2) Then they had to build a “Quiet Water Alarm” on a circuit board that would buzz and light up, when water was detected.
(3) Then they made an electrical current from four lemons. Each lemon had a galvanised nail on one side and a copper disc on the other side. Each lemon was connected to the next lemon with wires, connecting the copper disc to the galvanised nail on the next lemon. When all the wires formed a closed circuit an electrical battery was made.
The interesting fact was, when the engineer tested the “Quiet Water Alarm” for electrical power it reached 2 on her machine and it was powered by two AA batteries. When she did the same test on the four lemons they also reached 2 on her machine. Therefore the strength of two AA batteries was the same strength as that of the 4 lemons.
