Experiments involving RC circuits are an integral part of introductory physics courses. Previous articles using RC circuits describe determining the charge on a Van de Graaff generator, measuring currents and voltages in a charging RC circuit using a multimeter or an Arduino, measuring the decay constants of complex RC circuits, and using the…

In introductory electric circuits in middle school, students often carry strongly held alternative conceptions. Common to many of these is an idea of electric current as some kind of substance that originates from the battery and moves toward electronic components. Learners often argue that current influences those one by one as they are…

The rapid growth of personal electronics has promoted a surge of e-waste worldwide. Among the e-waste stream, waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) contain a lot of recyclable valuable metals that can incentivize the recycling operation when recovered. This pedagogical exercise demonstrates a simple electrocatalytic metal recovery strategy that…

The accurate and precise transport of the small amounts of the liquid by the syringe pump is widely used in many fields. In this paper, an Arduino-based syringe pump is fabricated using the computer DVD (digital versatile disc) drive. For the fabrication of the syringe pump, low-cost electronic components such as an Arduino microcontroller, a…

Our first experience of dimension typically comes in the intuitive Euclidean sense: a line is one dimensional, a plane is two dimensional, and a volume is three dimensional. However, following the work of Mandelbrot, systems with a fractional dimension, "fractals," now play an important role in science. The novelty of encountering…

This work provides a missing manual needed to understand permanent magnets (also known as "hard" magnets), the only source of "magnetic induction field B" (units of teslas), often called the magnetic field, that students are familiar with when they confront magnetic force acting on moving charges. Students see this magnetic…

Students experience current electricity every day in our wired world, yet the circuit problems that students work through in physics class can seem far removed from the common experience of switching on a light bulb. However, current electricity provides many opportunities to engage students in hands-on learning. Through circuit construction,…

Literature on student ideas about circuits largely focuses on misunderstandings and difficulties, with seminal papers framing student thinking as stable, difficult to change, and connected to incorrect ontological categorizations of current as a thing rather than a process. In this paper, we analyzed 417 student responses to a conceptual question…

Buckminsterfullerene (C[subscript 60]), along with diamond and graphite, appears in many chemistry textbooks as an example of an allotrope of carbon. This communication describes a hands-on activity to explore the characteristic structure of C[subscript 60] through the construction of a structural model using transistors and plastic tubes…

Resistor--capacitor (RC) circuit labs help students, but most courses don't include them because of complications and cost. This work presents an easy and inexpensive Arduino-based lab on the charge and energy transfer between two capacitors with different values of the initial electric charge when they are connected through a resistor. Capacitors…

Argumentation plays a central role in the development and justification of scientific knowledge. Learners could attain a more scientifically acceptable conceptual understanding by attending argumentation-based discussions. During argumentation-based discussions, students need to activate some metacognitive processes related to concept learning,…

The Widlar current source is one of the basic current sources that undergraduate students encounter throughout their learning process on electronics courses. The Widlar current is actually given in terms of a transcendental equation. Although an analytical solution exists in terms of the Lambert W function it might not be that useful for students…

Vector cross product transformations are essential components in general physics. The numerous mnemonic devices catered towards each potential transformation result in confusion, defeating their purpose of reducing learning barriers. Therefore, a general mnemonic device, subject-environment interaction or the subject, is proposed to help students…

Physics Education Research has a rich history of identifying common student ideas about specific physics topics. In the context of electric circuits, existing research on students' ideas has primarily focused on misconceptions, misunderstandings, and difficulties. In this paper, we take a resource-oriented approach to identifying common student…

The aim of this research is to identify pre-service science teachers' experiences during the simple electrical circuit establishment process, points they were challenged with, and developed strategies they used against the challenges they were experimenting with this process. In this study, embedded single case study, which is one of the…