Team Project: Fruit Battery

For the team project my group and I attempted to create a fruit battery.  To determine which fruits should be used in the fruit battery we started off by measuring the electrical voltage produced by different fruits.  We tested the voltages of five different fruits to gather data.  The fruits that tested were lemons, oranges, apples, cucumbers, and potatoes.  After reviewing this data we developed a hypothesis suggesting that a decrease in acidity will cause the voltage to fall.  This is because acidity is what makes fruits taste sour and the lemon and orange had some of the highest voltages.  To measure the acidity of the five fruits we used pH strips.  The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14, 0 being the most acidic and 14 being the most alkaline.  When we were finished collecting the data we constructed a graph to compare the voltages produced by each fruit and the fruit’s pH level.  From looking at the graph, it can be concluded that there appears to be a relationship between the acidity of the fruit’s juice and the potential voltage that that fruit can produce; the graph supported our hypothesis.O5BgxPCwHLKR3HAAnmWsHXamVY2_5DzBQNnPIhc_ZAPpxupIzNuc4MdvdWX-AjRtZyCHdjkNBEM1EsKjq9V-gSTp7zaZ7nxGCxNN0vjAv2T_ztcg9o_4mI7DY5WZb9r9ryLyK9ki

My team encountered a few problem areas when we were conducting the experiment in class.  Our plan was to have students take the same measurements that we did and then complete a circuit with some lemons and an LED light to light the bulb, in other words create a fruit battery.  One issue that we faced was that the multimeter wasn’t reading the voltage properly and then the battery died while a group of students was recording data so we had to find a new one.  Another problem with our experiment was that we had accidentally purchased the wrong LED light.  We got the lowest voltage LED light that we could to ensure that the low voltage that is produced by the fruits would be enough to power the bulb, therefore the LED was very small in size.  We had not attempted to light the LED by connecting it to lemons before demonstrating the experiment to the class.  The prongs sticking out of the bottom of the LED were too small and close together for the alligator clips that we were using.  We couldn’t get the clips to attach to the prongs without touching the other prong/clip disrupting the flow of the circuit.  Unfortunately, in the end we were unable to light the LED

I think we could’ve improved our experiment demonstration if my group had better planning and communication.  We should have done more research into which LED light we should use and then test it, but instead we got the LED light last minute and thought it would work.  In my opinion, our project wasn’t as complex as some of the other experiments that were demonstrated in class, but although it was simple I think students still found the experiment interesting.

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