The Unconventional Soda-pouring Switch

    Hey there everyone, my name's Kyle Amburgey and I present to you my unconventional Soda-pouring Switch! The components I used for this switch were one Circuit Playground Express as a 5V power supply, one bread board, one green LED, one 100 ohm resistor, four male-to-female alligator clips, one metal cup, and one aluminum soda can. When you take the aluminum soda can and touch it to the rim of the metal cup it completes the circuit and lights up the green LED, representing the joy one gets when pouring a refreshing cup of soda for themselves after a long day.

Electronics Team 14 - Sword Switch

 

Have you ever wanted to know when your sword is fully sheathed? Well now you can, with this unconventional Sword Switch, a LED light turns on only when the Sword is fully sheathed. One end of the switch is connected to the Handle whereas the other side of the switch fits exactly into the dragon claw, touching the metal only when the sword is fully sheathed. The power source is the Adafruit Express which runs into the positive and negative columns of the breadboard, then connects with one end of the switch, which connects to the sheathe, and then the other end of the switch is the handle, which connects back into the breadboard, sending the voltage through a 100 Ohm resistor, into the LED, turning it on. With one more wire connecting from that row back into the column that is powering the circuit, completing the circuit loop.

Scaffolding: Unconventional Switch

                Our switch definitely puts the unconventional in this assignment as our unconventional switch is powering our blue LED by tapping two scissors together and keeping it on as long as they’re tapped together and when you take them apart the light turns off. While there were a few challenges over all our design choice was simple yet effective. To achieve this all we needed was three one-hundred ohm resistors, two alligator clips for our 9v battery and scissors. For the narrative behind our switch is craftsmanship and creativity. A reason someone could possibly use this kind of switch may not be to turn on an LED light there is also but being able to be used for art reasons. Like the videos we saw before we could use such a switch to represent something, a cause for it generating energy. 

Unconventional Switch - Banana Conductor

 

Fruit and vegetables like bananas are able to conduct electricity, due to being ionic conductors. Ionic conductors are objects that contain both positive and negative charges. In hopes of saving money on this project, we decided to try to find an object that we already had lying around, so we went with a banana. I would say using a banana is a pretty unconventional way of using electricity. With our banana, we stuck the positive part of the circuit into the meat of the banana, while we stuck the other end just in the peel, via the stem. Once powered on, the LED lit up due to the electronic currents traveling through the banana.

Electronics Team 18: Unconventional Switch

 Unconventional Switch: Button Orientation

    Our unconventional switch is inspired by wearing a button! With our unconventional switch you never have to worry about whether or not the button you're wearing is oriented correctly, and people can see it properly. Our unconventional switch uses the five volts from the CPE and passes it through to a tilt switch. The tilt switch is attached to the back of a button and will detect whether the button is oriented correctly or not. The circuit then continues through to a 100 Ohm resistor, and finally to an LED that will stay lit as long as the button is oriented correctly.

Electronic Team 1 (Morgan Demunck and Clair Elso) - Unconventional Switch - Soil Measurement

 

 

For the unconventional switch assignment, my partner and I decided that it might be fun to play with the conductivity of water and soil to activate a switch, as both are conductive! 

 

The idea was that when a potted plant had gotten enough water to drink, the light would switch on—and then sloooowly fade over several hours and eventually turn off to indicate that the soil was completely dry and needed watering. 

 

Naturally, this is a very slow switch to demonstrate as you’ll see in the video below—but we think this is the perfect little device for absent-minded gardeners like ourselves!

Unconventional Switch: Electronics Team 4 Tyler Cook & Matthew Polfer

 

For our unconventional switch, we went with something that we didn't expect or think of, but it turned out really well and works like a true switch. We hooked up alligator cables to each blade on a pair of scissors. The scissors carry current at certain points depending on if the blades are touching each other. So if the scissors are closed then the circuit will be complete, but if the scissors are open then the blades do not touch and carry no current to complete the circuit. The basic concept behind this unconventional switch is that you can use the scissors to break or complete circuits if you do not have any other resources or switches to use. It is an outside the box tool that not many people would think of using but is surprisingly effective at filling that role.

Unconventional Switch - Ring Toss - Electronics Team 6 - Alex Zondervan & Ian Thomas

 

For our unconventional switch, we decided to take the concept of a ring toss to create the circuit. We used a circuit playground as the power source, a few metal rings and hooks, alligator clips, and foil to carry the current to the breadboard and light the LED. If you miss the ring toss and the ring does not make contact with the hook, the LED remains off. If you are able to make the ring toss, the circuit is completed and the green LED turns on, signifying that you succeeded. The purpose of the switch is to give you a signifier of your success when playing.

Unconventional Switch - Electric Mints

 

        

For our Unconventional Switch, we used a can of Altoids opening and closing to control the LED. On the can itself, the alligator clips are attached to the top and bottom parts where the can closes. The perimeter of the can is conductive, so the bottom alligator clip is attached with a rubber band and touches the top part of the can once it is closed. The idea behind this switch is that you know whether you’ve actually closed the can to avoid spilling them. It’s also a fun way of turning the LED on and off. Were this idea to be fully implemented, the switch would of course not require the rubber band and would control the conductivity of the can a bit better.

Patrick, THE LID! - Electronics Team 13 Garrett Tower & Luis Hernandez

 

Do you have a friend that simply doesn't know where the lid is on a jar well do we have the switch for you! Our switch will help any of your friends that struggle with taking lids off jars by showing them that when the lid is off the jar the LED light will turn off, this is particularly helpful if your friend is a starfish named Patrick. So we of course used our lovely jar that was attached to a green LED attached to our Circuit Playground as the power source. The thought behind this idea was just what is a fun way where we could reference a pop culture idea while also still making the switch do what it needs to do, so we came up with THE LID.

Lovely little demonstration of Luis being Patrick.

Our schematic for THE JAR

Having the 5v power supply - the 2v LED divided by the .02 milliamps = 150 Ω which is the desired resistance.

Unconventional Switch - Reverse Switch - Electronics Team 3

 For our switch we used a green LED and the Circuit Playground as the power source. The idea behind out switch was to create an ironic mirror of a normal switch, where normally the current would pass through the "wiring", our current passes through the level itself, and you can see the alligator clamp actually appears to be holding the lever itself, as if it were actually the one flipping it and powering the current. The plate allows the current to pass through, of course, but it is also more effortless than actually flipping a switch yourself, furthering the idea of the alligator clamp doing all of the work.

As for our power management, the Circuit Playground operates 3.3V while the LED is 3V. We chose to use a stronger 1000 Ohm resistor, mainly to increase the survivability of the LED, in case were to make a mistake in the wiring process, and the LED itself lights up adequately, despite the lower voltage going in.

Unconventional Switch: Electronics Team 5 - Joseph Donnelly & Max Martinez

 

 

 

 

For our unconventional switch, we decided to utilize the interesting properties of a hot dog skin to utilize as our switch. By connecting the power to the hot dog, and placing the input cable for the LED within the bun, we can activate the LED simply by placing the hot dog in the bun. This is due to the fact that the skin of a hot dog is able to conduct electricity. However, it is not able to do so particularly well, and has around 150 Ohms of resistance. For lowering 5 Volts to the forward voltage of 2 volts for the green LED, this is more than enough, thus entirely eliminating the need for an actual standard resistor. Thus, our switch is able to provide enough resistance on its own. 

While there is not much of a practical purpose for a light switch like this, it can be interesting as a way of representing the consumption of processed foods in modern society. On an individual level this is not significant, but on a grander scale it could be used to demonstrate just how widespread the consumption of severely unhealthy foods is.

Unconventional Switch: Electronics Team 2 - Amon Guerrero & Michael Magram

 

This simple circuit utilizes the zippers from a laptop bag to create an unconventional switch. Using a Circuit Playground Express connected to a laptop as its power source, the alligator clips carry voltage to the zippers first, which are enhanced with a bit of tin foil. If the zippers are touching, indicating that the bag is closed, the circuit will have continuity and light the LED. If the zippers are not touching, the LED will not light up and this indicates that the bag is open. The purpose of this circuit is help users keep their belongings safe by telling them if their bag is open or not. 

Video Link: https://youtu.be/BD6VOwXZf1A

 Unconventional Switch: Team 9 - Griffin Shields & Logan Burnett

From our 5-volt power source, the circuit playground, from the VOUT side, we’ve used an alligator clip wire to connect it to a 100 ohm resistor, and then with another alligator wire, we have connected the resistor to a yellow 3v LED. Connected to the LED, (again, via an alligator clip wire) is a dual button system comprising of first an actual button, alligator wired to a metal key, which to complete the circuit must be physically applied to a metal spoon, which has an alligator wire on the other end, acting as a connection to the ground, closing the circuit. The full circuit looks like Circuit playground > wire > resistor > wire > LED > wire > button > wire > key > spoon > wire > back to playground. 

Video Link: https://youtu.be/p_luethwvOo

Unconventional Switch: Team 12 - Michael Kocis & Ricky Elia

 

Our unconventional switch utilizes a marker and its cap. Alligator clips are taped to the body of a marker and the cap so that when the cap is attached to the marker, the wires touch and current flows, allowing the LED to turn on. Power flows from the battery, through a 100 ohm resistor into the LED, and then goes through the marker attachment before returning to ground. The LED is on when the cap is secure on the marker, and turns off when the cap is removed. The concept behind this is that the LED serves as an indicator for whether someone has placed the cap on their marker to stop it from drying out.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/TAZWM8aDd7c?si=05Ii84GKS0_o7gwj

Unconventional Switch - Austin Becker & Gabriel Nash

 

This switch was made using 2 dice that acted as the switch's mechanism. The dice used were D&D dice, which are made of metal, and are conductive. When the dice are pressed together, it completes the circuit. The 5 volt power source comes from an Adafruit Bluefruit Express, which is powered by a USB cable. The LED being powered was a 2 volt LED, which required two 100 Ohm resistors to provide the diode power without providing it too much power. Once passed through the LED, the ground cable was connected back to the Ground port on the Bluefruit Express.

Video demonstration: 

https://youtu.be/QI7Zn7I1Jzs?si=cqZsMi5kLhVuwPkj

Key and Lock Soda Can

 

Our Unconventional Switch is rather simple setup. It begins with 5 volts of power being fed from our Circuit Board Playground and attached to our standard key, which acts as our conductor. We then slot the key specifically into the Red Bull cap which is the only part of the can that is conductive. The volts channel from the key to the cap and then into the bread board. The current is then fed through our Resistor which is measured to be about 100 Ohms. This gives our LED light the exact amount of voltage it needs to power on at 3 volts. And finally, the circuit is complete and the remaining power is ground.

The Unconventional Triangular Prism

 

Hello all! Today, I’m going to show you what I call “The Triangular Prism”. The prism is an object with two metal paper clips sticking out of it, both being connected to the breadboard. The power source for this is the Adafruit Playground Express, outputting 5 volts into the circuit. The device uses one resistor to light up a blue LED light, which takes up to 3 volts of electricity. The circuit on the prism is completed using a popsicle stick wrapped in aluminum foil and taped with copper tape. The initial idea was to have the prongs on the copper tape, but the design proved to be too small for that, and having the popsicle stick’s aluminum foil touching both of the paper clips works just as well.