MENUCali’s Circuit Lab - Electric Circuits Game
Build real working circuits with Cali. Drag batteries, wires, bulbs, resistors, switches and meters onto the board: every part sits between two dots. As soon as a loop is closed, the bulbs light up and little yellow dots show the current flowing from + to −. Try it freely in the Lab, or play the 12 Challenges: light a bulb, add a switch, connect bulbs in series and in parallel, measure current and voltage, use Ohm’s law and find a broken bulb. Your stars and your Lab circuit are saved in this browser.
How to play
- Place a part: drag it from the parts box onto the board and drop it between two dots, or tap the part and then tap the place.
- Change or remove a part: tap it on the board. A battery can get another voltage or be turned round, a resistor another value. Tap a switch to turn it on and off. To remove a part, drag it to the bin or off the board.
- Voltmeter: drag it onto the board, then drag its red and black tips onto two dots. It shows the voltage between them.
- Challenges: build what Cali asks and press Check. Fewer wrong checks and no hint give more stars. A challenge opens when you have solved the one before it.
- Short circuit: if a wire lets the current go from + to − without passing through a bulb or a resistor, the current becomes huge, the battery flashes red and nothing lights up. Remove that wire.
- Keyboard: click the board, then use the arrow keys to move the frame, R to turn it, 1–7 to pick a part, Enter to place it or open its menu, Delete to remove it, Space to flip a switch and Ctrl+Z to undo.
What the game teaches
A closed circuit. Current flows only when there is a closed path from the + terminal of the battery, through the bulb and back to the − terminal. A switch opens and closes that path.
Series and parallel. Bulbs connected one after another (in series) share the same current; each gets only part of the battery’s voltage, so they shine more dimly, and if one breaks, the other goes out too. Bulbs connected side by side (in parallel) each have their own path to the battery: they shine as brightly as one bulb alone and keep shining when the other one breaks.
Meters. An ammeter measures current, so it goes into the circuit and the current has to pass through it. A voltmeter measures voltage between two points, so its two tips touch the ends of the part you measure.
Ohm’s law. The current through a resistor is the voltage divided by the resistance: I = U / R. With a 6 V battery and a 12 Ω resistor, I = 6 V / 12 Ω = 0.5 A. Resistances in series add up (10 Ω + 20 Ω = 30 Ω); two equal resistors in parallel have half the resistance of one (20 Ω and 20 Ω give 10 Ω).
The game uses volts (V), amperes (A) and ohms (Ω). Each bulb has a resistance of 10 Ω, and wires and meters are almost perfect, so the numbers come out as in a textbook.
