Paper Circuit Project: Lighting Jewelry Box
DESCRIPTION OF DESIGN:
I designed the lighting jewelry box. Many women wish they want to keep their jewelry in a good container. Also, the jewelry box can be a good gift box. Thus, I thought that it is a worth to put lights on the jewelry box.
Basically, I did parallel connection of the three lights on the top of the box toward the jewelry. The top of the jewelry box is transparent so that you can see through what is inside. The battery is in the bottom of the box, so we can hide the battery part with another layer. When you open the box, the copper tape is disconnected, and the light is off. If you close it, the light will be on (see Figure 1).
In the beginning, I want to make something practically use. Thus, firstly, I came up with idea, decoration of shot glass. What I expected was that lighting could throw the liquid in the glass so that drinker can drink with joy. However, I realized the light was too weak to throw the liquid. The, I moved to my second idea that I can make a small intensity of light. My second idea was checking system of the water container. In this product, I realized that I need to use Arduino to check how many times if you open and close the water container. Depending on the time, the color of light will be different. It was complicated and out of our assignment. Through the lesson from the previous idealization, I realized that I should use a small box to make an ultimate environment for the small LED lights. Thus, I came up with jewelry box because recently, I bought an earring for mother’s gift. When I saw the small gift box, I had a question, what if I put the light on the box? I am sure it looks more decorated and makes shining jewelry. The paper circuit project inspired me to think about how to connect and redesign the use it in real life.
PROCESS OF MAKING:
How paper circuit works was easy to understand, and it was fun to idealize what I want to build up. However, when I made it, I saw many shortcomings of the circuit itself. First, I tried a several times to light on. I am sure that I followed a right procedure. I connected to plus out from battery and plus on light. And, I connected to minus out from battery and minus on light. However, somehow, it did not work. I attempted many different ways to test it. Finally, I could not find why it did not work. I believe that it was happened not only to me. I saw some of students had same problems as this in the class.
It was a full of fun hand-on project. However, if you confront the problem, it became stress. I did my best to figure out the problems by myself why it did not work. First, I searched the paper circuit website. And, I decided to restart from zero bases. I watched and read every single instruction carefully. And I followed step by step again. However, unfortunately, it did not work at all. My second step was asking who is expert on this field. I asked to my engineer friend to can give me advice. He said the problem can be a battery. Since I previously used the battery a lot, it did not have enough power to supply the current three lights. Then, we tested with AAA battery. Again, it did not work. If students face the technical problem and do not know what to do, it might reduce their motivation like me.
REFLECTION ON LEARNING:
I learned two things: student-centered learning and science-based learning. First, it was student-centered learning that I am responsible for making it possible. If I have a question, I attempted to use other resources or asked somebody who knows answer of the problem. Second, I learned how electricity works to make light on based on science knowledge. While I tried to understand the process, I felt like I am engineer.
I recommend combining this material with design thinking class. The primary goal of design thinking is solving not only a social problem but also private problem. Whatever you have an idea, the pupils need to think about how they can approach and solve the problem improvement by using the current materials. It requires not only creative thinking but also logical thinking. Thus, if we combine it with design thinking course, the students can learn more concrete process of thinking.
The article, Digital Fabrication (Blikstein, 2013), discussed five elements (i.e., Keychain syndrome, a power of despair, power interdisciplinary, contextualized learning in the STEM, intellectualization, and re-evaluation of familiar practices). Among those elements, the paper circuit is related to intellectualization and re-evaluation of familiar practices and contextualized learning in STEM education. As Blikstein (2013) mentioned that students have a chance to understand science or engineering education in a highly meaningful, engaging, and contextualized fashion, I think the paper circuit project has meaningful aspect as well. The students understand abstract science concepts and produce it in meaningful design. For example, we learned how a circuit works on an electricity path, and I created lighting jewelry box to apply this concept to interpret in a meaningful and practical design product.