Electronics

Table of Contents

  1. Lesson 1: Voltage, current, and resistance
  2. Lesson 2: Circuit Schematics
  3. Lesson 3: Ohm’s Law
  4. Lesson 4: Series vs. Parallel Resistors
  5. Lesson 5: Resistors
  6. Lesson 6: LEDs
  7. Lesson 7: Breadboards
  8. Lesson 8: Variable resistors

Video. A demonstration of a force-sensitive resistor (aka a “pressure sensor”) that varies its resistance in proportion to an applied force. This is just one of the many things you will learn about and build in this “Intro to Electronics” tutorial series. See more in L8: Variable Resistors.

Welcome 👋 to the first “step” in your Physical Computing journey!

In this tutorial series, you will learn about the fundamentals of electricity—voltage, current, and resistance—and how these elements can be used to build circuits that turn on lights, spin motors, and do other “work.” You’ll also learn about an empirically derived relationship, called Ohm’s Law, that relates voltage, current, and resistance together and methods to analyze circuits using Ohm’s Law. Finally, you’ll learn about three common circuit elements (resistors, LEDs, variable resistors), how they work, and how to use them in circuits.

Throughout, you’ll use simulation tools like CircuitJS and Tinkercad Circuits to design and evaluate circuits and then actually build them using physical components.

By the end of this module, you will be prepared to start our Intro to Arduino series, where you will begin making with electronics, microcontrollers, and programming!

If you have limited background in circuits and programming, you may also want to consider our series on Making with the Circuit Playground Express (CPX), which uses a wonderful prototyping platform called CPX along with a drag-and-drop visual programming language called MakeCode (that is similar to Scratch).

Lesson 1: Voltage, current, and resistance

You’ll learn three foundational electricity concepts—current, voltage, and resistance—that underpin all electronics and circuits.

Lesson 2: Circuit Schematics

You’ll learn circuit schematics—the visual language used in datasheets, circuit simulators, and PCB layout software to describe circuits. Includes a hands-on activity using Fritzing to build your own schematics.

Lesson 3: Ohm’s Law

You’ll learn Ohm’s Law, one of the most important relationships in electrical circuits, describing how current, voltage, and resistance relate. Includes an activity to build and explore resistive circuits in CircuitJS.

Lesson 4: Series vs. Parallel Resistors

You’ll explore series and parallel resistor circuits, learn how to analyze them, and understand why they matter. Includes an activity building these configurations in CircuitJS.

Lesson 5: Resistors

Building on Lessons 1–4, you’ll dive more deeply into resistors and learn about how resistors work, how they’re made, how they’re characterized in terms of both resistance \(R\) and power \(P\), and how to “read” them.

Lesson 6: LEDs

You’ll meet your first semiconductor device—the diode—and learn how it only allows current in one direction. Then you’ll explore a special kind of diode, the LED, and learn how to select an appropriate current-limiting resistor. You’ll also physically build your first LED circuit!

Lesson 7: Breadboards

You’ll learn about a very useful circuit prototyping tool called breadboards, which makes it easy to rapidly build circuits (and plug/unplug components and wires).

Lesson 8: Variable resistors

You’ll learn about variable resistors, a certain kind of variable resistor called a potentiometer, and then design, simulate, and build some LED circuits using variable resistors. At the end, you’ll even make your own DIY variable resistor!