About the game
Real circuits, wired by hand on a blueprint board
Circuit Lab is a free electric circuits game for grades 4–8, part of The Active Home Academy — The Active Home’s series for older kids. On a blueprint workbench, players tap between dots to lay copper wire, watch the current flow, and solve ten hands-on challenges about how circuits really work.
Ten levels on the workbench
- Close the loop, Flip the switch, Find the break — build a working circuit, control it with a switch, and trace a longer path to find the missing wire.
- Conductor or insulator? — drop six mystery objects (a paper clip, a sponge, a coin, a balloon…) into the gap, watch whether the bulb lights, then call each one.
- Two bulbs in a row / Bright bulbs, two paths — build a series circuit and a parallel circuit and see the brightness difference for yourself.
- Stop the short circuit — find the wire that lets current skip the bulb and rush straight back to the battery.
- Both switches needed / Either switch works — wire AND and OR logic circuits out of two switches.
- Free build — an open sandbox with a parts tray: wires, bulbs, and switches to experiment with.
Every level ends with a short, plain-language lesson that names the idea the player just used. Finished levels earn a check mark, saved on the device.
How it plays
- Tap to wire. Tap the space between two dots to add or remove a wire. Animated dashes show the current flowing, and bulbs glow by the share of power they actually get.
- A working model, honestly labeled. Brightness is calculated from a simple model of identical bulbs and an ideal battery, and the game says so.
- Safety is built in. The game opens with a safety note — never experiment with wall outlets; real projects use small batteries and a grown-up helper — and one whole level is about short circuits.
- Saved on the device. Progress is stored only on this device — no accounts, nothing sent anywhere.
For parents and teachers
- Standards. Built for grades 4–8, aligned with NGSS 4-PS3-2 and 4-PS3-4 (energy transfer) and MS-PS2-3.
- Concepts that stick. Complete loops, switches, conductors and insulators, series vs. parallel, short circuits, and the AND/OR logic behind real machine controls.
- Free, always. No ads, no sign-up, nothing to buy.