Electrical energy and the capacitor Find the capacitor in your kit. It looks like the picture below.

A capacitor is a bit like a rechargeable battery. You can store energy in one. The original purpose of the capacitor in your kit was to provide a short-term energy source for a computer, to prevent everything from being lost when the power goes out for a few seconds. a capacitor

This capacitor is a little bit special -- it can hold far more energy than most. As a price of this specialness, it would prefer that you always connect the negative end of your battery to the terminal marked with the dashed black line. You also should not charge it to more than 3V (that is, don't connect it to more than two batteries in series).

write in your journal Can you figure out how to put energy into the capacitor, and then use it to make the light bulb glow? There are more detailed instructions on the next page -- but see what you can learn about this on your own.

Exploring the capacitor