DIY

G

Light

Questions

Wire for selecting answer

Answers

Wire for selecting questions

Make this simple quiz game using a battery, a light bulb, some wire, and paper clips.

CIRCUIT QUIZ GAME
Teach kids about circuitry in 30 minutes.
By Ben Wheeler

Illustrations by Damien Scogin

Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law states that “any and satisfying to see it work. You can quickly sufficiently advanced technology is indistin- rearrange the questions and swap them in and guishable from magic.” Clarke’s law could use out, which makes for fast competition, impromptu a corollary: sometimes it doesn’t take much topic-creation, and ample opportunities for for something to be advanced enough to seem ridiculing siblings. mystical. Today’s kids are used to every teddy Questions and answers are attached to a board bear and softball being Turing-complete, so by paper clips, with matching question-answer hidden complexity doesn’t impress them. To pairs connected in back. Two wires that dangle really dazzle them, you need older technologies, on the front of the board connect to the light bulb like circuitry, which feel magical by their very and the battery. When a player touches one of the openness and simplicity. wires to a question and the other to its correct

Here’s a classroom-tested example: a simple answer, the circuit completes across the hidden project that introduces kids to circuitry. It func- wire behind the board, and the bulb lights. tions as a quiz game, where a light bulb signals Circuitry projects like this are also a great way that the correct answer has been selected. The to introduce kids to circuit diagrams, and show circuit itself is very basic, but if you provide how they map to physical reality. Here’s a simple enough sections of quiz material, it’s surprising circuit diagram for this project: