First Breadboarding Circuit!

Hello!

Today I made my very first circuit using a breadboard at Engineering Club after school. Granted, it was a classic LED circuit that I’ve made on my Electronic Playground dozens of times, but I’ve never done it using a breadboard before. I’ve never even heard of a breadboard before today! It was super cool.

A breadboard, is not a board made of bread (this blog has not turned into a cooking blog). It’s actually this board filled with tiny slots that you could put and remove wires and components into, allowing you to make temporary circuits!

Image of Breadboard. The red & blue lines are solely for positive/negative connections!

A Disastrous First Attempt

So, based on my explanation above, the process doesn’t sound too hard, right? Yet, I somehow still got confused despite the best attempts of the Engineering Club executive’s instructions. It was pretty sad.

Thankfully, I had partnered up with the girl next to me, who was just as confused as me, so we could hopefully figure it out together! And we did….after a disastrous first attempt.

…

Now, I don’t exactly know what went wrong, but I distinctly remember a loud pop followed by the smell of smoke. We had blown up the LED.

Yikes.

Eventual Success!

Thankfully the exec teaching was very nice, and continued to patiently instruct us even post-LED-destruction. Which I’m grateful for, because otherwise I may have forever avoided breadboards in fear, never realising the joy of making circuits with them!

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you….

And then I also made it a bit more fancy:

Reflection

I had an amazing time. I’ve never had this much access to collaborative engineering opportunities before. There’s only so many circuits I can make with my Electronic Playground, and I’m usually stuck doing that by myself, with the exception of my mom sometimes joining in.

This experience has made me so excited for the future. High school so far has been both a little boring and somehow surreal because of COVID, but the tech-opportunities are really shaping things up to be so exciting, making me enthusiastic for what’s to come (especially when the pandemic is finally over).

See you next time!

(hopefully soon : )

KD Tech Days