Episode 3 - How To Make a Lemon Battery

Batteries are all around us. They're in our toys, telephones and remote controls. So what is a battery and how do they work? Watch this episode and learn how to make working batteries out of different household items.

Instructions:

1. Tightly wrap the ends of four pieces of copper wire around the top of four nails. Leave the fifth nail and wire separated.
2. Place your lemons in a circle.
3. Push one nail into the first lemon and the copper wire from the same nail into the second lemon.
4. Push the second nail into the second lemon and the copper wire from that nail into the next lemon.
5. Continue this all the way around the circle until you’ve connected all but the first and fifth lemons.
6. Attach the gator clip of one wire to the copper wire and the gator clip of the other wire to the nail.
7. Attach the other gator clips to the wire ends of the LED bulb.

Troubleshooting:

1. Each lemon should have one nail and one piece of copper wire. Make sure none of the nails and/or copper wires are touching inside the lemons (this will cause a short in your battery).
2. Check to see that your copper wire is wrapped tightly enough around your nails. If they are wrapped too loosely, you may not be getting a complete circuit.
3. Try unclipping your LED bulb and switching the gator clips to the opposite bulb wires, you may have accidentally clipped the bulb wires to the wrong battery terminals. The LED bulb has got a negative and a positive wire that must be connected to your lemon battery’s negative (nail) and positive (copper wire) terminals.

Battery Facts:

1. Batteries are also called electrical cells. In fact, the things that we call batteries today are really electrical cells. A “battery” is really a group of two or more electrical cells clumped together to create an energy source.
2. The first thing like a battery was demonstrated in 1791 when a scientist name Luigi Galvani tried to prove that there was electricity in the legs of a dead frog. He managed to make the legs move by creating a circuit (a full circle for the electricity to flow through). But he didn’t really understand how it worked.
3. In the year 1800, Alessandro Volta produced electricity by putting different types of metals in salt water. He’s the one who really created the first “electrical cell”. It’s because of his work that an important electrical unit called the “volt” was named in his honor. There’s also a crater on the moon named after him! The batteries we use today work in the same way as the one he created over 200 years ago.
4. An electrical cell is like a can of chemicals. Inside the can are two metals and a liquid or paste. The liquid or paste is called the electrolyte. The two metals are called terminals. When the two metals are connected with a wire, it causes the chemical reaction. The chemical reaction causes a type of particle called Electrons to form. The electrons flow through the wire from the negative terminal to the positive terminal. If you put something on that wire, like a light bulb, it uses part of the electricity that’s flowing through the wire, until all of the electricity is gone. Then it’s time for a new electrical cell or battery.