Lab 9: circuits

Lab: 9 circuits

To experiment with and learn more about circuits we hooked up an ammeter to a power source and began experimenting with how resistors, light bulbs, and changing the amount of resistors affected the voltage going through the wires. After experimenting with a light bulb we measured the voltage of the wire after it had gone through the light bulb and found that voltage seemed to increase linearly with the amps, or as we increased the power the brighter the light bulb seemed to get, logically this made sense. Thus we made the argument that all of the system would follow the same principle.

This however proved untrue when we added in a second resistor. After adding a second resistor we found that the voltage began to experience an exponential growth. This seemed to be based on how and when the resistors began absorbing the charge and how much began to go through at a time. As the amps increased the voltage being stopped and regulated by the resistors seemed to be mixed up by the second resistor, changing the voltage increase from a linear one to an exponential one.

Thus our original prediction was proven false, the information managed to both contradict and support our original experiment. The voltage in the current did increase based on the amps provided, but were limited in differing amounts based on the amount of resistors in the wiring.

Problems and issues

an unfortunate problem we had was that the voltage would change roughly based on how much pressure and where we placed the attaching clamps on the resistor or how tightly we held the wires to the light bulb. this could have disrupted some of out data an information, but not likely enough to disrupt the entire results.