Lantern Reflection

The lantern project proved a lot harder than I thought it would be. Having done a similar circuit project before, I made the fatal mistake of assuming this project would be a breeze. The first place I went wrong was by jumping right into the building before drawing my circuit diagram. Doing such a simple thing literally could have saved hours because I was just not able to visualize the switch until I drew diagrams for myself. Eventually after spending frustrating time in the lab I decided to take a break and clear my head. I sat down, drew the circuit diagrams and immediately felt like a fool for how I was trying to set it up! Lesson learned. Below are my circuit and design diagrams as well as resistance calculations which I did before starting the project.





My design is a simple hand-held lantern using an old soda can to help reflect the light. The soda tab acts as a  hanging device for the lantern and I used a recycled shoelace to string it. This design is also nice because it hides the batteries and wires in the base of the lantern so that they don't clutter up the finished design and the light reflects off of the scrap foil. I've created a simple switch out of brass brads and used a paper clip to connect or disconnect the circuit. The good thing about this switch is that is doesn't require someone to hold it down all the time it can just stay on for hands free illumination. Below are pictures of the finished product.

I envision my lantern as a good one to have for doing school work late at night, around the dinner table, or hung and used as a reading lamp by a bed or chair. The lantern works great for resting, hands free illumination. The potential downside to my design, however is that it wouldn't work well as a "flashlight"or for focused illumination--it is more for a rounder, more distributed light.


UPDATE: As soon as I got to class, settled down and threw my switch on I found my lantern only dimly lighting and then soon it totally stopped lighting. Oy. This was insanely frustration. I spent the class wondering what could have gone wrong in the 18 hours since I had last tested the lantern. After class it took only 45 seconds to figure out that one of the wires had been jostled out of place. I got it fully working again of course after the class and demonstration was over. The lesson here is to test more for durability and try and find weak points to preemptively reinforce before finishing the product!