My first featured project for Fall 2009 is an electronic quiz box that I produced in my Tech 201 class at UND.  For the project, we were to design a circuit that would allow a question to be answered but pushing a button and then the corresponding LED would light either red or green, depending on whether the question was answered correctly.  If the question was answered incorrectly, there is a buzzer that will also sound. The test administrator then needs to have the option to change what button is the correct answer, along with changing the corresponding incorrect answers.

Top view of the circuit

As you can see in the above image, the red push buttons on the left side are used to answer the question, lighting the corresponding LED on the right side.  The toggle switches in the middle allow for changing the correct and incorrect responses.

Side view of the circuit

Above is another angle of the circuit.  All of the parts are connected to a printed circuit board that I made.  The PCB is shown below.

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) for the circuit

The above PCB was my first experience with circuit board etching.  The estimated time to produce just the circuit board is about 1 hour.  After the board is made and the holes are drilled, the individual parts can then be soldered to the board.

The soldered components and board were then placed into a 4″ x 6″ plastic box.  Holes were drilled in the box to accommodate for the LEDs and push button switches.

Below are a couple of pictures of the box and circuit in action.

Correct answer = Green LED, No Buzzer

Wrong Answer = Red LED, Buzzer Sounds

Well that concludes this project.  If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please post them in the comments below.

Well it’s that time of year again: The days are cooler, the leaves have fallen off, and the semester is half over.  With the middle of the semester comes the one of the busiest times for classes.  Depending on your chosen major, you may be taking tests, writing papers, experimenting in the lab, or working on hands-on projects.  Being an Industrial Technology major at UND, we focus on the latter and that means it’s time to update the blog.  Be sure to check back in the next few weeks as I begin to wrap some projects up and post some updated content.

While waiting for a new posts, be sure to checkout some of my projects from Spring 2009.