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5. Vex Online Challenge: TI Challenge 918D

Vex Online Challenge: TI Challenge 918D   For our teams challenge, we broke apart an alarm clock and looked at all the parts inside. We first unscrewed the bottom screws to the alarm clock. Our team then separated the bottom from the top of the clock to take out the electronics. We did the alarm clock since we did have very many old pieces of technology. We also did not want to do a calculator since that is what we thought most teams would do.           The components that we found in the alarm clock were circuit speakers, an electrolytic capacitor, tantalum capacitors, buttons, a battery connecter, a transformer, a seven segment display, and an integrated circuit. The chip in the alarm clock or integrated circuit is a LM8560 and there was no clear way of seeing what company made that chip. So, we did not find any TI chips in the alarm clock.         Electrolytic Capacitor and Tantalum Capacitor block direct currents and allow alternating currents to pass. They can tune radio frequencies in resonant circuits and in electric systems, they stabilize voltage and power flow. Capacitors can vary by shape, color, and electric capacities.       Circuit Speakers: These speakers produce sound like other speakers. This allows to clock to produce its alarm sound to wake its user up from sleep.   Button: when you press down on the metal part it sends a signal to do a certain task. This helps the clock to know when to change time or any other functions like set an alarm. Battery Connector: The battery connector charges the clock and gives it energy to perform a tasks. This allows the clock to receive energy from a D-battery to get it working.   Transformer: electrical device that transfers electrical energy between two or more circuits. Seven Segment Display: an arrangement of seven bars forming a square figure of eight, used in electronic displays of alphanumeric characters: any letter or figure can be represented by illuminating selected bars.   Integrated Circuit: The LM8560 is alarm equipped digital clock IC with built-in driver capable of directly driving LED display equipment. As IC himself the VDD pin for the LM8560 is graded to withstand a voltage of 15V.   Conclusion: What we have learned from our challenge is that some small machines can be more complete than they seem. We have seen that it takes many small components to make a large machine to work.  Components like capacitors and transformers have been somewhat new to us since we only build the hardware of the robots we make. Our learnings have told us what some components do and how some of them look.