During my group’s first project brainstorming session we came up with a few different experiment ideas, but liked the idea of working with electricity.  After conducting some research, we decided on making a DIY battery that could be used to power a small appliance of some sort.

We explored different ways of making a homemade battery and came across two methods that caught our attention.  The first method would be completing a circuit through using an ice tray, copper wire, galvanized nails, and distilled vinegar.  We liked this idea but after putting more thought into it we came to the conclusion that it would be somewhat difficult to collect accurate and reliable data.  Although we could measure the electric potential of this set up, we wouldn’t really have any other data to compare to.  This lack of data is crucial when attempting to support a hypothesis so we decided to pass on this idea.

The second method we liked was to complete a circuit through using fruit, copper and zinc nails.  This method was more appealing to us because it was more versatile.  We decided to commit to this idea because through using this method we would be able measure the electric potential of multiple different fruits and vegetables and their acidities.  We can compare all of this data to get an accurate idea of what fruit generate the most electrical output and why.  This data would help provide a more well rounded conclusion to support our hypothesis compared to the lack of data provided by the ice tray battery.  Although there are several different appliances that we could power via fruit for the experiment, we still haven’t entirely decided on what we are going to use.