Week 8: Lighting Up A Cigarette

A video of my switch is uploaded here.

I complete the circuit and a red light switches on by pressing two cigarettes together and open the circuit and turn off the light by pulling them apart. I taped the connecting wires to the cigarettes. A picture of the circuit is below:

The circuit itself is simple but I like the concept behind it. In smoking circles, if somebody doesn’t have a lighter, a friend will offer to light their cigarette by putting their cigarettes together. It’s surprisingly intimate because the two people have to put their faces quite close to each other for the trick to work. You pause in the moment, and then your cigarette flares bright red, and you pull back. I really liked making this circuit because it resembles that smoking experience pretty closely. There’s something meaningful in it to me, in watching the little red light, which indicates the cigarette lighting, burn and disappear by putting the cigarettes together and pulling them apart. I think it’s a pretty cool switch.

Unfortunately, I burned two red lights out before getting a friend to help me figure out that I needed a resistance wire with a higher resistance. Their remains are pictured below, RIP:

All in all, it’s simple. And it requires the use of my hands but I liked the concept too much to let it go. I want to upload this for now but I plan to ask Professor Riad to help me develop the switch a bit more for the purposes of this assignment.

(Also I am just recognizing how often cigarettes have played a role in my assignments this year. Hm.)