Science Olympiad2014 Coaches Clinic

MSU

Circuit Lab (C)

2

Changes from 2013

• Theory 50-75% Practical 25-50%– Was 50-50

• New topics– History, Wheatstone Bridge– Digital Logic

• Combinatorial only, no sequential circuits• Schematic Symbols• Boolean Logic, equations• Circuit Simplification

3

Electronics is

Problem Solving

• Draw a schematic of an actual device

• Identify real parts (R, C, …)

• Read part parameters:values, tolerance, wattage,working voltage …

4

Engineering Terminology

• Metric Prefix Engineering Units 3.15 kΩ, 0.22 μF 1,255 kwh 4.7 mH

• Not Scientific Notation

• Confusion m (milli) M (mega)

s (second) S (Siemens)

5

Hints

• Answer the Question !!

• Units– If it asks for volts, don’t answer in amps

• Dimensional analysis – sanity check

• Shouldn’t get more out than in

• Get hands-on familiar with the real stuff

6

Practical Portion

• Open ended – not cook book

– Build something from a “bucket” of parts, power it up, then measure some things.

– Draw a schematic, ID parts and values from a circuit board.

7

Problem Areas(from 2013)

• Familiarity with parts

8

??? How to hookup?

What goeswhere?

9

How to Measure?

• Hook up the meter ?– Ohms– Volts– Amps

• Auto Scale vs. Manual

• AC vs. DC

• Common Sense “Sanity” Check

10

Hands On Practice

• Students need to build circuits• Measure voltage and current in circuit

– Voltage Across– Current Through– Blow fuses ???– Ground ?

11

Regional Level

• Broad topic coverage

• General basic concepts

• Mostly single step “Forward” problems

• But thought provoking, not just memory

12

State Level

• Teams have already succeeded at Regional

• We assume they can do Ohm’s law and other simple one-step problems

• Memorization of formulae will not be successful – teams will need to APPLY the fundamental principles to solve the problems.!

• Multi Step “Backwards” solutions

13

Sample Questions

• Taken (modified) from 2013

• Do NOT take as a definitive sample

• 2014 will have topics not shown

• Intent is to show level of complexity, “word problem” context, and schematics.

• NOTE: Digital logic not in 2013, but will be in 2014.