Make your own lemon battery powered clock!
What you’ll need
·
2 copper plates
·
2 Zinc plates
·
Wire
·
An
LCD digital clock
This is one of those projects where it really makes sense to
buy the set but if you want to know how it’s done before you buy it here we go:
You will need to cut your lemon (orange, potato, grapefruit
or even a soft drink will do, you could even try mud I was told the other day!) in half stick
one copper plate in each half and one zinc plate in each half. The copper plates are the positive of the
battery and the zinc the negative. With one piece of wire connect one of the
coppers to one of the zincs. Now you
should have a red wire and a black wire attached to the clock. The black wire is a neutral or ground
connection wire. Why a black and a red wire?
Correct me if I’m wrong, I am learning this with the girls but I believe
the black is a negative wire and the red a positive.
The would make sense because in this circuit we attach the
red wire to the copper plate (positive to positive) and the black wire to the
zinc plate negative to the negative. You
will see your clock is now powered. But
how?
The copper plates act like the positive electrodes of a
battery. They are plated with metal that
are less reactive than zinc. When we put
the copper and zinc plates into the lemon (or whatever it is you chose to use)
a chemical reaction takes place.
Electrons which are very small particles too small to see
with the naked eye move from the zinc plates to the copper plates and this is
what activates the LCD clock. It is the
lemon juice that conducts the electricity.
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