STEM PROJECT: PAPER CIRCUITS

One of our projects in STEM club was paper circuits.

I found this activity from the SF Exploratorium's "Tinkering" website.

The concept: Electricity runs on a path through metal. We call this a "circuit," which sounds like "circle." (Our paths looked more like a rectangle, but you could make it any shape as long as they were a closed shape.) A circuit could be a single closed shape called a "series" or two connected shapes called a "parallel" circuit. For this project, we made "series" circuits.

Image source: https://study.com/academy/lesson/types-components-of-electric-circuits.html

---

The project calls for copper tape, gumdrop LED lights (white or color), coin cell batteries, clear tape, and art supplies. I sourced the copper tape and batteries from my nearby hardware store and our art supplies were in the classroom already. I preordered the LED lights from Amazon in a package. I now have plenty for future projects!

1. The kids started by creating their greeting cards or artwork using cardstock, markers and crayons. (We had lots of Pokemon characters!)
   
2. Then, they had to turn their artwork over to create the series circuit. They punched a hole with scissors through the paper where they wanted their light to shine through.
   
3. Then they put the copper tape in a rectangle so that it would connect with the light wires on either side and the battery on the other side. The tricky part was making sure that the tape did not get messed up because it was quite fragile. They also had to play with the battery to learn which side was positive and which was negative to make the light turn on.
   
4. You can fold a corner over to make the light turn on and off by disconnecting the tape from the battery.

If you do this with young elementary students as I did, I would prep the paper with the copper tape. That way they are focused on adding only the LED light and the battery. For kindergarten students, I would prep the light as well so that they simply are adding an illustration to the light and the battery. Tearing tape is already tough for kids developing fine motor skills!

Here's the diagram from the project: