Question: Do you know how phone chargers actually charge phones? What is your favourite animal?

Amber Villegas - Williamson answered on 11 Jun 2024:

A phone charger will take the electricity that we have at home (Alternating Current…think a wave at sea going up and down) and use a transformer to step-down the voltage (i.e. make the voltage lower so we can process it on our phones). Transformers are super interesting as they are in very basic terms 2 coils of copper wire almost touching…imagine making fists with your hands then instead of touching your knuckles together you leave a small air gap…that’s kinda what a transformer looks like, how many knuckles you have on one side or the other will determine if we are stepping the voltage up or down. For our phone charger to work we need to step-down the voltage and lower voltage will then go through a process called Rectification….all that means is that the voltage which is alternating current will be turned into DC which is known as Direct Current (Direct Current current is super super dangerous as it stays constant so if someone touches a wire with DC they will be stuck to it and there is no split second moment when they can Let Go unlike with AC power, your teaches can explain more).
So the Rectification process (basically converting AC voltage into DC voltage…AC/DC just like the band) is done using a Rectifier also known as a AC to DC converter. Once the voltage is in DC we can then charge your phone battery which will store the energy in the battery. You chemistry teacher can explain what happens as electrons move through the battery when electrical power source is added which will charge the plates.

You could probably make a phone charger in class, as they are not that complicated. I made a battery charger when I studied Electronics at A-level.

Favourite animal…dogs…all of them 🐶