Dance Mania project for engineering class.

1. Dance Mania
Julia Rodriguez
Nolan Slagle

2. Understand
• The goal of this project was to make a prototype of a
dance pad and a light station. Working in pairs of
two, one person would make the dance pad and the
other do the light station. Both parts should connect
with a circuit system and work effectively.
• Nolan did the light box and Julia completed the
dance pad.
• The project rubric tells us that the dance pad will
work as a switch and the light station will light up
when the switch is closed.

3. Explore
• By using a phet.colorado.edu simulation we
explored making circuits. It took several tries in
order to get a working circuit that included all
the lights and pads or switches that we needed.
• We also researched diodes which make electrical
current flow only one way and incorporated that
into our design.

4. Define
• We were required to have four light bulbs and
six switch which include a pad where all lights
turn on and a pad where two lights turn on. All
the lights are required to light up when the pad
is pressed on. The entire project has to be
aesthetically pleasing and not messy. We were to
make this out of cardboard, aluminum foil,
wires, 4 tiny light bulbs, a 6 volt battery and
whatever else was necessary to complete the
project.

5. Ideate
• At first we tried designs without diodes and the
wiring kept flowing too many ways, this is when
we decided to use the diodes so that the
electricity could only flow one way.

6. Prototype
This is our design for
our final prototype.
The only
difference
between this
prototype and
the others is
that this one
has the
diodes.

7. Refine
• Our product took a while to connect all the wires
together, and during the process some of the
connections came loose and we had to reconnect
them with the electrical tape.
• Our design had no flaws and did not have to be
refined.
• Once it worked we made our product
aesthetically pleasing by using colored paper.

8. Solution
This is our final
product.

9. Solution
This is the wiring under the
dance pad that makes a
switch when it is pressed
down on and the foil
touches.
These are the wires from the
dance pad going into the light
box where the circuit is to
then turn on the lights.

10. Video
This is the
video of our
working
final
product.