Alex Othman Jr's Intro to Engineering class: What I did in October

Alex Othman Jr's Intro to Engineering class: What I did in October


Q: What projects did you do in the your engineering class for October?

A: Well i had to do many things in this class. Most had to do with cleaning the room and making projects that have to do with volts.

Q; What were some projects that you did in his class?

A: This is one of the projects i did which had to do with making a sketch of an object they resembled a prism with and opening.

Q: What did the object look like when you put it together?

A: It was more difficult to successfully put all the side of the object together with tape and paper, but in the end i got what the object would look like if not made with what it was originally made with.

Q: What were some things you learned about volts in this class?

A: Well i learned about Ac units being able to go and comeback while Dc units couldn't come back because it didn't have the right amount of power to make it back.

Q: Were there any times you had to miss class for something?

A: Yes there was once a flag football game that was a fundraiser for something else and people who paid had to miss some of their class, but the next day we continued the work.

Q: What were some projects that you did that had to do with volts?

A: Well we had this project that had to do with making a battery out of pennies with zinc, salt and cardboard to get to a certain volt which was .8, but it wasn't easy at all

Q: Did you still have to clean even though you were doing such a hard project?

A: Yes we did have to still clean, but i was OK with it because we were using the class for our projects, so it was ok to help around, but had trouble finishing because there was a fire drill.

Q: Did you ever have to get above .8 volts for the project?

A: Yes we did. On the start of the week we had to make our penny battery somehow get up to 1.6 volts. At first it was hard, but after i added some more pennies and changed the cardboard to hold everything together it got up to 1.6 very easily.

Q: Wow that's impressive. Was there a purpose for doing all of this?

A:Yes in the end we had to get to 3.2 volts at least, so we could power a L.E.D

Q: Did you reach 3.2 volts to power the L.E.D?

A: Actually yes i did not only reach 3.2, but i surprisingly passed 3.2 and got up to 3.3 which was better that what i was supposed to get to.

Q: When you got to 3.3 volts were you ready and able to power that L.E.D you needed to power?

A: Just as i touched the L.E.D with my penny battery it turned on and i was very happy, so i took a picture of it to show that i completed my job and ended the day.

Q: You are very talented Alex. Was there still more cleaning to do after the job?

A: Thank you for the compliment. there was still more cleaning like having to clean the salt we used and putting pennies that weren't used back in there container. i also had to bring some lost books that were in class to the Social Studies room

Q: where there any other things that you in these past weeks?

A: yes. In the beginning of this week we started to learn how to solder and also strip a wire with a wire cutter so it has its wire out.

Q: what does a stripped wire look like after you use a wire cutter?

A: This is what a wire looks like after we cut five inches off a bigger wire to then cut a quarter off of it on each side.

Q: Does the wire cutting and the soldering have to do with any projects?

A:Well yes it does. On this day my teacher told us how we would use the penny battery we made before to get a box and a switch to then hold both and make a flashlight out of the L.E.D, the pennies and the switch.

Q: what were some tools did you have to use to hep you start this?

A: These were the tools we used on the project to put together two wires using other metals to hold them together. these tools were the wire cutter, the wire, pliers and the metal we used.

Q: what exactly did you use these tools to do the next day?

A: They were used when we were introduced to this tool today which is a tool used to hold two wire in place so that we don't burn our hands when trying to solder the wires together.

Q: Did you have to actually have to use all these tools?

A: yes and this was the end result of this part of the project for soldering two wire together. At the end we had to use a voltmeter to see if the current still went through to the opposite sides of each wire.

Q: Wow that's impressive, but were their any problems while doing this

A: while we were solder we noticed that we didn’t have enough holders. So we decided to make more by putting and using many different parts of cardboard pieces.

Q: the end result of the little obstacle?

A: Well i then put it together with a classmate and we made a solder holder so no one would get burned when they put it down.

Q: Were you afraid that it might be destroyed?

A: yes i was actually. My teacher then asked me to make the holder more appealing so no one would destroy before the week was over, so i decided to make it into a rocket that aiming down.

Q: That's very impressive. What it hard to make?

A: not at all. We used hot glue and pieces of cardboard that was measured to make each part and also bent a piece of metal into a circular shape, so the solder wouldn't light the cardboard on fire