Have you ever wanted to give someone a Valentine’s card or a greeting card of some kind, and wanted to really impress them? Are you feel limited or bored with making the same old drawings with pencil, pen or marker? Did you know it is possible to create greeting cards that light up? Well today is your chance to make the best Valentine’s Day (or birthday, Arbor Day, holiday, etc.) card ever! In this activity, you will get to design, customize and create your own light-up card that is powered with a mini battery, an LED (or multiple LEDs), and a circuit made of copper tape. Your design is totally up to you, but templates are available if you want some ideas. (Adjust the previous sentence depending on the teacher’s planned use of the provided three templates.)

Insert a battery: Once all the components are installed, test the circuit by adding a battery (see Figure 4 and slide 8). Carefully slip the battery underneath the copper tape flap made earlier and center it inside the circle icon. Make sure the positive side of the battery (top, marked with the battery model and +) is facing up. Press the copper flap over the battery, and tape it down with clear tape. Flip your template over and apply copper tape to all of the brown lines. We recommend folding the copper at the corners versus cutting it. Keeping the copper in a single continuous strip will help with its continuity ensuring the LED lights.or more) LED; use the smallest size you can find so it does not add much bulk to the folded greeting card, such as 3-mm size for 35¢ each; for extra flair, consider using 3-mm, color-changing cycling RGB LEDs for 50¢ each; alternatively, cut apart individual LEDs from a set of LET string lights and then use a hobby knife to scrape the coating off the wires before using OR experiment with different LEDs to find what works best for the project objectives At this point your circuit is complete. Fold the card and push the LED through the “x” you cut earlier.

electricity: The transfer of energy resulting from the flow of charged particles (such as electrons). The next step is to attach the LED to the template. Before you can do this, you need to determine which side of the LED is positive and negative.

Fold the card in half along the dotted center line before moving onto the next step. Tip: It is easier to make a crisp and neat fold now, before the circuit components are added to the paper. paper circuit: A low-voltage electronic circuit created on paper using conductive copper tape, LEDs and a power source such as a small battery. Cut a short strip of copper tape and roll it in a ball with the conductive adhesive facing out. Place this ball in the battery circle on top of the copper tape circuit. After you finish coloring the template, cut an “X” where the LED will go. The last step is to fold your template in half. Step 3 – Apply Copper Tape