

Wreck Your Tech
Explore what's beneath the surface of your old gadgets by taking them apart.
This activity may be Fiddly and Messy
Explore what's beneath the surface of your old gadgets by taking them apart.
This activity may be Fiddly and Messy
What will I need?





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Are the objects easy to put back together?
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Can you make a display or art piece using all the components?
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Can you group the components together in different ways, such as by material or shape?
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Did you find anything surprising?
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Do your objects have more or fewer parts than you expected?
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Can you work out what the different parts are there for?
Inside every gadget you use every day you will find many different parts that have been designed and engineered with consideration for the properties of each material. Inside most electrical gadgets you will find a source of power, usually a battery or, if it runs on mains power, a power cord. Devices that plug into the mains may contain a transformer to convert the mains voltage (230 volts) into a lower voltage, often 12 volts.
Most electrical gadgets contain a circuit board which fits different electronic components into a small amount of space to make it work—look out for microchips, resistors, capacitors, switches and LED lights.
All the gadgets we use in our everyday lives rely on scientific principles that have been discovered by scientists. But it is engineers and designers who develop new products; they need to have a working knowledge of those scientific principles, so that the products do the jobs they are supposed to do reliably.
