Lab #3 - Light

For this lab, I was tasked with creating several electrical circuits to produce light with light-emitting diodes (LEDs), various resistors and/or sensors, jumper wires, USB power, and SparkFun breadboard and RedBoard Qwiic. Each circuit was more difficult to create as additional electrical components were introduced. Ultimately, the final circuit I made was a RGB night-light that uses a photoresistor sensor to turn on the different LED colors, which can be adjusted using a potentiometer knob, when it gets dark. 

The most difficult part of this lab assignment involved creating some of the redboard and/or breadboard connections, including those involving jumper wires and resistors. With the first couple of circuits of the project, I didn’t struggle too much with making the connections because not as many individual components were included and the circuit diagrams were helpful. On the other hand, with the last two circuits, I took more time to set up the connections since there were many of them as well as a wider variety of components involved. Even after I thought I set the circuits up correctly, I found that I wouldn’t get the correct light result after running the SIK code. Thus, I had to go back to recheck and fix all of the connections. With the last circuit (1D), I needed my instructor's help with finding the connection I set up incorrectly because I couldn’t find it even after multiple times rechecking.

The most rewarding part of this lab assignment was learning about and using the different electronic hardware. Previous to this lab, I had a very limited understanding of and experience with circuits as well as circuit-related components, including breadboards and various resistors (such as potentiometers an photoresistors) as well as digital and/or analog inputs. Thus, I thought it was fun and interesting to learn about how to set up various circuits and use the different components to achieve different light results. For example, for the second light circuit, I thought it was cool to see how the potentiometer knob could be adjusted to output different voltages which would result in different LED flash speeds. Similarily, I liked learning about how a photoresistor is light-sensitive with more light exposure decreasing the resistance between its two terminals.