Electricity & Electronics Science Projects (Page 9)

How Do You Know Where You Are Without GPS? Dead Reckoning and Inertial Navigation

Science Fair Project Idea

Engineering Design Process

Put a meter stick on the ground. Starting at one end of the stick, close your eyes and try to walk exactly one meter. Open your eyes. How close were you? Now try it again with five, ten, or twenty meters. Does it get harder as the distance gets bigger? Without an outside reference from your visual system, it's quite difficult to know exactly how far you've gone! Electronic navigation systems face the same problem. Without an external reference like the global positioning system (GPS), it's very… Read more

Testing a Parabolic Reflector with Light from an LED

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

You can see examples of parabolic reflectors in flashlights, car headlights, satellite TV antennas, and even on the sidelines at football games. How do these "dish" antennas work to gather signals? What is the best position for placing the detector for these antennas? In this project, you can use an LED and a simple photodetector to find out for yourself. Read more

Linear vs. Logarithmic Changes: What Works Best for Human Senses?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

If you want to get your friend's attention at a crowded sporting event with lots of people cheering, you need to shout. If you're trying to do the same thing in a quiet library, a whisper works. The detection limit for each of our senses depends on the amount of "background" stimulation that is already present. This project uses an LED control circuit to investigate detection of changes in light levels. Read more

Effect of Different Materials on a Magnetic Field

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

You've seen that a magnet's attractive force can cause a small object (like a paper clip) to "jump" to the magnet. So a magnetic field can act through the air, but what about other materials? Here's an experiment you can do to find out. You'll need a strong bar magnet, a stack of books, a paper clip, some thread and tape. Place the bar magnet underneath the top book in your stack, so that it sticks out. Tie a piece of thread (as long as the stack of books is high) to a paper clip. You… Read more

Invent an Interactive Toy with a Raspberry Pi

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Did you ever have a favorite toy like an action figure or doll that could light up, make noise, or move? This project will show you how to make your own interactive toy using a Raspberry Pi. Check out the video to see what this simple, but fun, project looks like. The version you make does not have to be a robot; it can be any shape and have any sound effects you want. IMPORTANT: The instructions for this project were originally written using Scratch 2 on a Raspberry Pi 3B+. If you are using a… Read more

How Far Can Sparks Jump?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Piezoelectric barbecue fire starters work by creating a spark that ignites the volatile lighter fluid, which then starts the charcoal burning. They are low current, high voltage devices. How high does the voltage have to get to make a spark in air? This project shows you a way to find out by with an inexpensive experimental setup to measure the distance that the spark can travel between two spherical electrodes. Read more

Rock On! Recording Digital Data with Magnets

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

This is a straightforward project that shows you how data can be digitized and stored on magnetic recording media. You'll learn how alpha-numeric characters are digitized, and you'll use bar magnets to represent the individual data "bits." You'll also learn about how much information can be stored in a small space (recording density), and how magnetic data can be erased. Read more

Design a Wearable Air Quality Index Monitor

Science Fair Project Idea

Engineering Design Process

You can look up information about local air pollution, such as the Air Quality Index (AQI), online or even get alerts on your phone. But what if you could wear a device that continuously monitors the air quality around you in real time, alerting you to unsafe levels? Such a device could alert a person with asthma when they need to go inside, let you know if smoke from a nearby wildfire is drifting in your direction, or signal when it is time to take a break on a hazy summer day. The Science… Read more

Upstairs, Downstairs: Turning on a Light from Two Places

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Maybe somewhere in your home there's a long hallway or a stairway with a light that you can turn on from either end. It's a nice convenience, but did you ever wonder how it's wired up to work that way? The goal of this project is to build a similar circuit with switches, flashlight batteries and a flashlight bulb (obviously, household circuits are not safe to experiment with). You'll need to understand the difference between connections made in series and connections made in parallel in an… Read more

How Long Does It Take to Fry a Diode?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

If you have ever built an electronic circuit with a soldering iron, you know that the component leads get hot. How much of that heat gets into the device you're soldering? This project shows you how you can use a silicon diode as a temperature sensor to find out. Read more

Electricity & Electronics Science Projects (95 results)

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