Electrical issues

The students have really done a good job connecting the relays to the various LEDs via the breadboard. We are now working to connect some LED lights that I ordered online. The first mistake was ordering plug in LEDs that require 110V AC power. I decided that ordering the nice battery powered lights was the best idea.  Unfortunately most of the lights have a controller with 3 or 4 wires which allows them to blink in various patterns.  We have spent 2 full class periods finding out how to get the lights to turn on using the relays and power supplies. We found that one of the LED strips needs 25 volts to operate and because it has 3 wires we had to find out how to get the various sections to light as a function of the wires that were powered.
We finally have some lights working with regularity and are now going to program them. The kids are doing well but I think it's time to define some tasks and set some goals - enough tinkering.