In STEM this week, I did not get the opportunity to continue making my electromagnets for my model because we did a session on soldering circuits instead. To begin with, we drew the different parts of a basic circuit on an image of a circuit board. This allowed us to understand where the positive and negative energy goes and where they meet before even attempting to solder a complete circuit together. Once we had mastered our understanding of this, we began to gather the materials that we needed to make a circuit. These materials included a battery, solid solder, a resistor, a small light bulb, and a switch. Once we had set up the soldering iron, we began to connect all the different parts of the circuit with melted solder. We were able to make the melted solder by heating the solid solder with a soldering iron. We then had to carefully place the melted solder we had created onto the connection points between each of the different parts of the circuit and relative hole in the circuit board. Once the melted solder had become solid, we knew that the connection was secure. Once we had carefully soldered each of the different parts of the circuit onto the circuit board, we had finally created a successfully functioning and reliable circuit! As intended, the completed circuit allowed us to successfully turn the small light bulb on and off using a switch. Making a successfully functioning circuit allowed us to gain a greater understanding of how circuits work and the importance of having secure connections in a successfully functioning circuit.