Measuring Electricity Lab

Last Friday I completed this week's lab for Physical Computing. The objective of our assignment was to familiarize ourselves with how to use a multimeter to measure voltage, current, and continuity.

To prepare for this lab I set-up the breadboard so that it could be connected directly to a power source. This required that I set-up a voltage regulator to convert the 15v generated from the AC/DC converter to 5v. This was actually the hardest part of the lab for me because at first I was using another component that looked just like the voltage regulator. After almost burning my finger on the over-heated component (and enlarging a few of the wholes in my breadboard), I was able to get the breadboard set-up properly.

The video below captures the various voltage and current measurements that I executed. As expected, when we measured voltage the values across different components in the circuit always added up close to the full 5v. From a current perspective, we were able to verify that current is consistent throughout a circuit except in areas where there is a parallel circuit (in these instances the current is divided between the parallel components/paths).