The light will only turn on if the bug touches metal, not wood or other insulators.

credit to the invention hunters by Korwin Briggs

• a battery has a part that lets electrons out (the negative terminal) and a part that pulls electrons in (the positive terminal)
• When you connect batteries with a wire, the electrons flow through it to power anything they go through

credit to Barron's visual learning phisics

• Power is supplied by a cell (sometimes known as a power cell)
• more than one cell is a battery
• in a circuit there are Resistors, variable  resistors, bulbs, switches and diodes
• diodes make a circuit a one-way flow

credit to 100 scince experiments

• meatal is a good conductor

We will change what materials the bug touches. 

Materials: D size battery, pipe cleaners, small lightbulb, plastic covered wire, googly eyes, plastisine, tinfoil and paper

First you tape a wire to the negative side of the battery and tape it along the side of the battery. After that, you get a small lightbulb and rap the wire around it making sure the metal is touching it. Next, you put the sticky tack on the positive side of the battery and put the lightbulb into the plastisine, making sure that the bottom of the lightbulb is touching the positive side of the battery ( metal to metal )  and nothing is inbetween it and the negative terminal. Then you put tinfoil on the tips of the wire covering the metal wire parts. Decorate the battery with paper, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. Then you touch the tinfoil to a conductor and the light will light up.

- If the lightbulb wasn't touching the battery ( metal to metal )  then it won't light up

- If the metal part of the wire wasn't touching the metal on the battery or light, the lightbulb won't light up

- You have to rap the wire very tightly around the lightbulb, otherwise it doesn't work

A very unexpected thing was that the lightbulbs did not light up when they touched the stainless steel forks. We though that the bulbs would light up because steel is metal, and metal is a very good conductor.

After figuring out how to attach the wires to the battery and the lightbulb and figuring out how to get the lightbulb to touch the battery ( metal to metal ) it's actually a very easy expiriment!  There were a few challenges like finding good batteries, lightbulbs, and making the tinfoil stay on the wire.

When the battery bugs did not light up at all no matter what we did,  we looked for scorces of error. It turned out that the wire wasn't pushed down on the battery very well and the light bulb was not touching the barrery. So Walter (Gwendolyn's brother) decided to 3-D print little covers for the light bulbs on the battery and we added more pressure to the wire.

There were a few challengs like, finding good batteries, lightbulbs, getting the lightbulb to touch the battery ( metal to metal ) making the tinfoil stay on, and attaching the wire to the battery and lightbulb ( metal to metal )

( Andrews and Knighton, 2008, 42 / 43)

We would like to acknowledge the help of our parents ( buying suplies, helped us log in, and helping answer questions )   We would also like to acknowledge the books  " The Invention Hunters "  and Barron's Visual Learning Physics "  for giving us lots of facts about electicity. The battery bug idea, experiment and instructions are all in "Usborne: 100 Science Experiments".