And still lots of people were providing answers already, and Penelope didn't feel like repeating since she couldn't think of anything that hadn't been suggested. She didn't even know this much about electrical stuff. She knew it existed and had used it before obviously, but she'd never really thought to consider learning exactly how it worked, so...yeah, she had nothing to add. Building a circuit might be cool though? But that wasn't worth saying out loud, so she remained silent.

Okay. Nigel was officially lost. He never learned this stuff from Cerulean or textbooks. Muggle technology never really interested Nigel. Why learn about stuff you are not interested in. Other than the obvious core classes of course.

He still did not know the ins and outs of a circuit and apparently was not listening. So he id not hear the other two thing that helped make/aid a circuit.

So yeah. Let the people who knew about muggle tech to answer. Which the majority was surprisingly or not surprisingly hufflepuffs. Weird.

Okay so the others provided their answers which Adi neatly scribbled down. But other than what was listed, he had no idea at all what else would be needed. One would think he'd be able to answer that being half blood and all. And it wasn't like had had not learnt about these circuits in school. He had. And he had forgotten what were needed.

So instead the boy sat in silence as listened for more responses.

Laura raised her hand. "Professor you would need a bulb holder to put the bulb into." Laura had to agree with Minnie on that one, it was alright having a bulb but if you didn't have one that could light up then how would you know if it was working or not.

"For a simple circuit, a resistor isn't really required, no." Hadley said, shaking her head dismissively.

OH FINALLY! The most obvious thing, Hadley would have thought. Other than batteries of course. "Yes! A light bulb! Very good!" She added that to the list.

Hadley paused, stunned by the next suggestion. "I suppose that buzzers could be used, in lieu of the light bulb. Light bulb is the most common and easiest to visualize though. But a buzzer, you could hear if it works or doesn't. I think I might have a buzzer in my supply box, if you wanted to try building your circuit with that instead?" You know, just for educational purposes. See what happens and all.

Checking her paper when she heard Tobias' suggestion, she frowned a moment and then nodded. "Yes. Actually that would probably work better and be safer to use than scissors. There is a special kind of scissors called a wire stripper, as Tobias said, which will pull off the ends of the insulation. Excellent!" She paused. "And actually, certain wire strippers, actually have spots on them where you can cut the wire, if you needed to."

"Yes! The final item! Perfect! You need a special kind of tape called electrical tape!" Hadley beamed at the fourth year.

But then, what? What was that last thing she suggested? "Willing volunteers? Ha. You're all going to build one today, well in groups of two of three."

Oh whoops. She forgot that part. "Yes, the bulb needs a socket holder. Very good!"

SPOILER!!: The blackboard

Required materials:
- copper wire, cut into three pieces
- battery
- switch
- small flashlight bulb with socket
- electrical tape
- Wire cutter/stripper

"Okay, work in groups of two or three." Hadley said, as she passed several sets of the materials onto each tables. "Tread carefully, as you do this. This isn't a race and if you're not carefully, you can poke yourself or injure yourself on the wire. Plus the lightbulbs are fragile. Instructions are on the board." With that, she flicked her wand a set of the procedure steps appeared to the right side of the materials list.

SPOILER!!: Procedure

1. Use the wire cutter to cut the copper wire into three relatively even pieces. About 6-8 inches long.
2. Remove about quarter of an inch of insulation at each end.
3. Attach one wire to the positive side of the battery and secure it with electrical tape.
4. Then attach the other end of wire one to the right side of the light bulb.
5. Get another wire and tape it on the negative side of the dry cell.
6. Attach the other end of wire two to the left side of the switch.
7. Get the last piece of wire and wound it to the right side of the switch.
8. Finally, attach it to the left side of the light bulb.

ooc: take your time; aka, don't do it all in one post (considering you're working with partners/groups). ask questions if you have to. help each other out. you have about 24 hours for this activity before we start some observation of your circuit. YES, Alec Summers, you have a buzzer instead of a light, along with whoever you're working with...

At his correct suggestion, Tobias beamed and then kinda softened his expression to a COOL STARE and kinda sorta not really but maybe mIGHT HAVE reached up and popped da collar. Just a bit.

To show how cool he was.

AND THEN they were ACTUALLY MAKING WITH THE ELECTRICITY.

First things first, and that was to MAKE FRIENDS and group up. Tobias grabbed his parchment and quill and wasted precisely zero seconds in seeming to almost just appear suddenly beside Alec's desk with a grin on his face and his collar still popped.

"Hi Alec! Can we work together and create a BUZZ of excitement?"

'Cause Alec got to use the buzzer.

PUNS.

Minerva thought about how they would make this. It couldn't be to hard, right? Well it didn't look like it at least. Just putting the different parts together. Well if they were doing this as a project, Minerva felt she could certainly handle it. Listening to the directions Min jotted down some notes to make sure she had the steps that were needed.

hmmm

Group work. Was this the first class this term that needed group work. *frowns* Her usual partner was off being adultish at Uni so now she had to find another partner. She looked around not sure who would want her to be their partner. Some how the good mood she had been in turned into a insecure could she just work alone mood. Sighing inwardly she turned to look around, "Anyone need a partner I can work with you."

Groups! Adi didn't mind working in groups. They could be fun. Sometimes, anyway. He glanced around the class. Who would want to work with him? Tobias had already approached Alec. He should get a move on this.

Then Adi caught Kace's eye and grinned. "Wanna partner up, Super Alien?'' Kace would know what that meant. Sure that his friend was going to say yes, Adi grabbed the copper wire and wire cutter and pushed them inn Kace's direction. "I think you'd better do that. Before I mess it up.'' Won't want that now, would they?

That.................. was another language. West didn't understand the stuff on the board, he just didn't. The things needed, the actual instructions.... they were words, but that was pretty much all he was getting. What he needed was diagrams, definitions, and demonstrations because....

... yeah he hadn't grown up anything resembling Muggle at all. West just stared at the board.

....

.... Finally he put his hand up.

"Professor, I don't understand any of this."

Nigel was trying to follow along. He really was. But the more she talked the more it made less sense. What was a socket holder. At least he knew what electrical tape was. It was similar to duct tape.

The instructions looked to be in another language. It seemed he was not the only one lost.

"I don't understand any of this either"

Yeah......

Seemed simple enough to her. But then again, she'd grown up with this stuff. Not to mention the potato clock she'd made when she'd gone back to Constance Ballard during what would've been her third year. So, yeah she was ready.

"I can help," Sky piped up when West and the Ravenclaw prefect mentioned being confused. Because she totally had this.

S=Tora grabbed a wire and some wire cutter and went to work. She originally looked about for someone to work with, but not seeing anyone immediately had decided that she could do this on her own! She held up her own wand, figuring that a little more than half of the 11 inches would be enough wire needed, and measured based on that. Snip, snip, Snip! Or well, that's what she imagined a perfect cut to be. Her "snips" went more like CRUNCH, CRUNCH, SNAP, CRACKLE, POP. Was it supposed to be doing this? She tried to be more careful so she wouldn't hurt herself.

Now that she had three separate pieces of wire, with very jagged ends, in front of her, she had to remove the insulation. This proved to be an even harder task than the actual snipping (crunch, snap, crackle, popping) of the wires as whenever she tried to get the wire cutters to only bit into the rubber and not the actual metal underneath it went all CRUNCH, SNAP again. The wire got shorter and shorter and shorte and short and shor and sho and sh and s until finally she had to cut another piece since the one she was working on was about 2 inches long. She glared at the trouble wire. She would get this! She grabbe the new piece she had snipped (with much crackle, crunching and popping) and tried again. Same results. AGHHHHHH! She threw (gently placed) the cutting tool down on her desk and crossed her arms. Normally she wouldn't ask for help here, and would just keep trying until she got it, but she didn't want to waste wire so she reluctantly said aloud, "I'm having issues. Please someone help me."

Laura had no idea who to work with so she just sat down and decided to see if anyone wanted to work with her because she was totally and utterly going to try her best with this because she loved muggle studies and she thought that knowing about things that muggles do was fascinating.

"Me too. I'm confused as well, professor." Probably because she was totally tuning out this entire class.

But other people didn't get it either, so it was okay.

Elaboration please, professor?

"Yeah? Because I don't know what any of it means. Nobody's ever explained any of it before, this is the first I've been told anything." And Hadley was kiiiinda assuming some pre-knowledge, West felt.

He looked at an Alice and then back toward Nigel and then around. Was anyone else in the same boat?

This was the part that she hated... working with others. She knew that she and Laura had their problems in the past, but she also knew that the girl was a muggle lover and that might just work in her favor this time. Instead of whining about not know what was going on (which she really didn't) she was going to use others to her benefit.

She walked over to the girl. "Hey Hyde, wanna work together?"

Minerva was finishing up her notes when she heard West and Nigel she was just about to say something to them when Sky spoke up. Well then boys have fun, because she wasn't going anywhere near that. Turning she was going to go ask Wade if he wanted to just partner when she heard someone ask for help. Looking around she noticed it was a Ravenclaw. Tora if she remembered correctly. She met her over the summer at the quills with Michael.

Walking over to the young girl she smiled, "Would you want to work with me. I was just going to find a partner." She didn't think it was going to be to hard, so why not help someone as she worked. "It looks like you got most of the material here already, but I think I'll grab another wire." Minerva went up to the front and grabbed the wire, coming back she grabbed her parchment with the directions.

"So it looks like the first thing we need to do is cut the wire in three pieces. Why don't I measure them out so that they are even and you do the cutting. Do you know how to use the cutters?" She reached down picking them up to hand them to Tora. She wasn't being rude with her question just if she wasn't around muggle things scissors could be tricky.

Ascanius said nothing as the lesson went on.

Everything she was saying he understood with perfect clarity because he had built this stuff before. Brake lights needed a lot of circuit work and, oddly enough, that was the most common thing he fixed this summer, yeah? S'like the highest rate of accidents involved lights on cars or motorbikes.

He could do this assignment with his eyes closed, but she did know that she was making it way more complicated then it needed to be, yeah? Just his own personal opinion.

When she finally advised them to begin, he could feel the awkward I-don't-understand tension in the room. He didn't blame them. S'complicated stuff that wasn't easy to understand on the first try. She also kind of threw a lot of information at them at once.

Though he did slightly peep up, "I geddit if anyone wants help, yeah?"

Ella understood that some people were confused. It'd be hard not to be if you'd never dealt with this kind of stuff before. Actually, Ella was a bit confused and she had learned about this sort of thing so...there you go. She glanced up at Hadley and gave her a small smile and then looked around for a partner.

"Anyone want to work together?" She had a pretty good idea of what she was doing too. Maybe.

Tora looked up gratefully as the older girl came over to work with her. "Thanks, I needed some help here." she said gesturing to the supplies she had piled in front of her, specifically to the attempted stripped wire. "I got the cutters down, but stripping the wire is a serious problem." she continued in explanation, glaring at the trouble wire.

Tora picked up some more wire, and pushed the two already cut 7 inch pieces towards the Hufflepuff Prefect. "I'll work on cutting this last one, you can strip." she said distractedly as she bent over her wire, measuring out 7 more inches. SNAP. Well, at least there was no more crackle, popping and the edge wasn't quite so jagged.

Minerva smiled "Oh that's not to hard and it doesn't have to be a lot. It's just to expose some of the wire to put into different places." Minerva took the wire that had already been done and took the cutter/stripper back off of Tora. "See all you do is apply the pressure here and go around so it doesn't cut through the wire." She proceeded to do each one showing Tora exactly what she meant. Once that was done she looked back at her parchment. "Wire cut into three pieces, check." marking it off the list as she went along.

Looking she picked up the battery and by finding the little plus sign pointed. "Now the next step says we need to put the wire onto the positive side of the battery. So I'm going to set the wire on it can you grab the electrical tape and tape it?" Teamwork was really a great way to do things. Not enough hands was always a problem. Setting down the wire on the positive side Minerva waited for Tora to tape it.

He was lost. No other way to describe it.

See, he'd been okay with the general electricity bit. He'd seen it in action. But he had no idea of how it was measured, or how it worked. Sure, if he'd put some thought into it, he might have put the wires and battery and bulb bit together. But the rest? Yeah...no. Wasn't happening. The instructions might as well have been in Gobbledegook.

For instance, what WAS a dry cell, except like the detention rooms in the dungeons...just less damp and mouldy? And wasn't insulation used to keep the house warm? What did that have to do with anything?

He was actually rather relieved that others spoke up first. "I don't get it either," he admitted quietly. He looked round the room...anyone wanna help?

So buzzers could be used! AWESOME. And Hadley had one? That he could use? DOUBLE AWESOME. Yeah, it'd be interesting to work with the buzzers instead, right? As long as the buzzers didn't sound like alarm clocks because... those were just annoying what with their constant ringing. He did grin, though, when he got handed a buzzer instead of a light bulb. Buzzer. Buzz lightning. Now he just needed a Woody and he was ALL set.

His grey-blue eyes flitted over towards the blackboard and he scanned the procedure. They actually had to cut the wired? That... wasn't going to be as hard as cracking open an egg, was it? If so, here's hoping that the person he was working with was good at egg crackin-- ... erm, cutting wires. And speaking of hi partner... OH HEY. BADGER BOOM! "Hey Tobias!" he said, grinning at the boy.

Also. HA! Buzz of excitement! BUZZ! Tobias was funny, did he know? "YEAH!" he said, a little too enthusiastically. But then again, this was Tobias. How can anyone NOT be enthusiastic and happy around the guy? "Ready to buzz on ahead?"

... He was terrible at this. Really. Poor Tobias.

Sarah was glad that having a muggeborn mother came in handy.. as well as going to a muggle primary school. Although she did feel bad for the others. So she decided to try explain it as best as she could. "So you know about electricity that its what muggles need to operate their things. This circuit is similar to a plumbing network with pipes. You know what plumbing is.. right?" It was one of the things that Wizards adapted to. "So the wire acts sort of like pipes, it carries electricity just like pipes carry water. You also need a source for the water in a plumbing system, like a lake or rain, so in an electrical circuit you have something called a battery that supplies the energy. So what are we giong to use all this electricty for? Just like all pipes are needed to bring water to a place.. like a bath tub, the electricity is needed for the light bulb. A light bulb is what muggles use for light as they can't use magic for that. So the electricity flows through the light bulb, lighting it up as its energy. As each electrical cell passes the light bulb it moves on along the circuit back to the battery again. The thing is, just like plumbing can only work if all the 'pipes' are connected, so too, in a circuit, all the wires must be connected. Using this bit of intelligence, a switch is used so you can start the electricty flowing by pushing down the wire inside, connected the network. Or you can push it at the other side, and like a see-saw effect, the wire will be lifted, stopping the electrical current from flowing." That was the basics, in case that helped the others.

Meanwhile Sarah collected the supplies for her own circuit. Not before writing down notes

Would you look at that, they would be needing that tape stuff afterall. She'd have to owl her father to let him know that she would finally be using that electrical tape stuff. Funny how when he bought it she'd said she never saw the point in it and wouldn't actually use it. Granted, she still had no idea what exactly she'd be doing with it but you got the idea.

Lex glanced over at the board filled with things they would be needing. She looked to the equipment the Professor had put on her table and soon found herself as lost as Alice and the others. What went where exactly...? Why did muggle stuff have to be so weird? Lumos worked brilliantly.



She glanced up at the board again where the procedure had been written down. Writing it down didn't make her know what to do anymore than simply telling her to get to work. Just across the room, Sarah was giving some form of an explanation...that was grand and all but she just wanted to know how to set this up. Didn't these come with a manual she could get someone to read then tell her about?

Okay...okay she would just stare at the board until she figured something out. So far, just cut the wire. That was it? She took up the only thing she could consider wire and the only thing she figured did the cutting right ALTHOUGH DIFFINDO WORKED JUST AS NICELY and tried to make the three pieces as even as possible. Again, it would have been so much easier with magic.

Now came the cutting the 'insulation'??? What in merlin's beard?? Yeah. This wasn't working. "Anyone wanna be partners?" Someone who actually KNEW what these instructions were going on about preferrably.