The Pregame: What's a potentiometer?
A potentiometer (sometimes called pots) is a three terminal resistor. One terminal is connected to the power source, one terminal is connected to the ground (material with no voltage/resistance), and one terminal slides across a strip of resistive material. When you turn the knob you slide the third terminal across the resistive material and end up varying the resistance.
Setting up your circuit:
Connect the positive (red) cord coming from the 6V battery pack to the LED, the LED to the one side of the potentiometer, and the negative(blue/black) cord from the potentiometer to the battery pack. Start with the potentiomter turned all the way counter-clockwise then rotate it.
.... forgot to take pictures of the circuit....here's a penguin.
RESULTS: Well the LED got lighter the further I rotated it to a certain point, at this point the LED simply shut off. I check the LED and noticed the voltage for it was rated for 1.5V. After a certain point my LED gave up all together and left me with a dead circuit.
LESSON: Get LEDs with the right voltage rating, 1.5V LEDs are wimpy.
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