Electricity with citrus circuits
Brian Saccardi demonstrated charge separation as a form of generating electricity at the Cornwall Library on Saturday, Jan. 7. 
Photo by Riley Klein

Electricity with citrus circuits

CORNWALL — The Cornwall Library was buzzing as two area experts led a discussion and demonstration on electricity on Saturday, Jan. 7.

Local electrician Steve Saccardi teamed up with his son and UMass Amherst PhD student Brian Saccardi to provide insight on the fundamentals of electricity.

The duo addressed the science behind electro-magnetism as a force and reviewed the different ways electricity can be generated and harnessed.

“The electro-magnetic field is concentrated along the outside of the wires that run to things like lights,” said Steve Saccardi. “The reason those fields exist is because inside the wire there is an electron moving.”

After an in-depth discussion on how and why electricity works, the Saccardis provided visual demonstrations on two different methods for generating electricity.

First, a circuit consisting of four lemons and four oranges, each rigged with copper wire and zinc nails, was used to power a small light bulb.

“If you have two dissimilar metals, one has a stronger affinity for electrons than the other,” said Brian Saccardi as he explained the chemistry behind the experiment. “When put in a substance that allows electrons to easily move, the metals will trade electrons.”

He explained this process is fundamentally the same as the science that occurs in everyday batteries, with the citrus acting as battery acid in this experiment.

After using lemons to light a bulb, the Saccardis demonstrated a Van de Graaf machine, which uses charge separation to generate voltage. In a Van de Graaf machine, high voltage direct current is generated at low levels through the movement of a belt inside an insulated column.

The discussion was presented as part of the Cornwall Conversations program at the library.

Related Articles Around the Web

Latest News

Employment Opportunities

LJMN Media, publisher of The Lakeville Journal (first published in 1897) and The Millerton News (first published in 1932), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news organization.

We seek to help readers make more informed decisions through comprehensive news coverage of communities in Northwest Connecticut and Eastern Dutchess County in New York.

Keep ReadingShow less
Selectmen suspend town clerk’s salary during absence

North Canaan Town Hall

Photo by Riley Klein

NORTH CANAAN — “If you’re not coming to work, why would you get paid?”

Selectman Craig Whiting asked his fellow selectmen this pointed question during a special meeting of the Board on March 12 discussing Town Clerk Jean Jacquier, who has been absent from work for more than a month. She was not present at the meeting.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dan Howe’s time machine
Dan Howe at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
Natalia Zukerman

“Every picture begins with just a collection of good shapes,” said painter and illustrator Dan Howe, standing amid his paintings and drawings at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. The exhibit, which opened on Friday, March 7, and runs through April 10, spans decades and influences, from magazine illustration to portrait commissions to imagined worlds pulled from childhood nostalgia. The works — some luminous and grand, others intimate and quiet — show an artist whose technique is steeped in history, but whose sensibility is wholly his own.

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, and trained at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Howe’s artistic foundation was built on rigorous, old-school principles. “Back then, art school was like boot camp,” he recalled. “You took figure drawing five days a week, three hours a day. They tried to weed people out, but it was good training.” That discipline led him to study under Tom Lovell, a renowned illustrator from the golden age of magazine art. “Lovell always said, ‘No amount of detail can save a picture that’s commonplace in design.’”

Keep ReadingShow less