Schematics, Switches and Circuits and Kite festival

Way before the onset of the weekend activities, an ideal Saturday for my family was to wake up late, have a late breakfast (or brunch), then begin the lunch preparations, have lunch at 2:00 p.m. and then take a nap or watch TV. In the evening we would go to Costco, do other shopping and have dinner outside.

However to accommodate the weekend activities, we had to make changes to our routine, like re-schedule kids classes, wake up early, skim down on elaborate lunch, do groceries on weekdays and most important of all watch less or no TV. I am glad we made these changes.

This Saturday we went to Intel museum for the Schematics, Switches and Circuits class. Here is what they learnt:
Schematics : This is the diagram of electrical elements that form a circuit. They had to use schematics for the hands-on activities.

Closed Circuits : A closed circuit is when the electricity flows.

Open Circuits : Electricity does not flow through open circuits. When the switch is turned off or a wire is loose or an element of the closed circuit is removed, it becomes an open circuit.

Series Circuit : Elements in a circuit are connected in a series and if one of the element breaks the circuit is open.

Parallel Circuit : It has more than one closed circuits and even if one circuit is broken the others still work. This type of circuit is important in microprocessor chips.

The kids worked in groups to make series and parallel circuits from the snap on pieces provided. Lastly to test their understanding they picked the doorbell schematic and made the circuit.




Fremont Kite Festival :

This was in the Lake Elizabeth Park in Fremont and about 2500 kites were given out free to kids. We reached at the venue around noon and the kites were all gone! The ground was filled with booths of Kaiser Permanante, Kindermusic, tiny tots, art classes, Lucky, Mad Science. There were jumpers and food stalls as well. We had good fun for almost 2 hrs.