Everyday Electronics in Action
Discover how everyday gadgets really work by tracing the path of electricity through loops, resistors, capacitors, and switches. Build a practical mental model of basic circuits using real-world examples.
Like Duolingo, but for Everyday Electronics in Action. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Making Things Work: Circuits in Real Devices and Reacting to the World: Storing and Switching. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Everyday Electronics in Action
- Electricity cannot do work just by reaching a gadget; it must loop back to the battery's opposite terminal
- Cutting either wire breaks the entire loop and instantly stops power flow
- Voltage is the electrical pressure pushing electrons forward
- Current is the actual rate or volume of electrons moving through the conductor
- A switch physically pulls two metal contacts apart to create an air gap
- Air acts as an insulator that household and battery voltages cannot leap across
- Turning off a switch doesn't soak up power; it just breaks the continuous loop
- Electricity follows the path of least resistance, bypassing the bulb entirely through the direct wire
- Without a component to use the energy, massive current rushes through the wire instantly
- This unrestricted surge converts into intense heat, risking burns or quickly draining the battery
- LEDs are diodes, meaning they only allow current to flow in one specific direction
- Incandescent bulbs use a heated filament that works regardless of orientation, while LEDs stay dark if wired backwards
- Once switched on, an LED offers negligible resistance to incoming current
- Without a resistor to throttle the flow, excessive current rushes through and destroys the LED's diode junction almost instantly
- Resistors restrict electric current similarly to how a narrowed pipe restricts flowing water
- The energy dropped across a resistor doesn't disappear; it is converted into mild heat
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Everyday Electronics in Action the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What happens if you cut just one of the two wires connecting a light to a battery?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where Everyday Electronics in Action takes you
- 1
Making Things Work: Circuits in Real Devices
- The Loop: How Everyday Gadgets Turn On
- Taming the Current: Resistors and LEDs
- 2
Reacting to the World: Storing and Switching
- Holding and Releasing Charge: Capacitors
- Automatic Control: Transistors and Sensors
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Everyday Electronics in Action is taught in the The Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
More Technology on Tomo
Hands-On Electronics
Demystify how everyday gadgets work by building and understanding circuits from the ground up. Learn to direct electrical currents, wire components safely, and read circuit behaviors.
How Electric Circuits Work
Learn how electricity moves through everyday devices and gain the confidence to build your own circuits. From breadboarding components to debugging with a multimeter, discover the practical rules that bring hardware to life.
How Electrical Circuits Work
Demystify electricity by building, measuring, and troubleshooting real circuits. Learn how voltage, current, and resistance interact to power everyday devices safely.
Electricity and Practical Circuits
Move beyond basic textbook formulas to build a working intuition for real circuits. Learn how components behave under load, diagnose tricky faults, and master the forces shaping electrical systems.
How Electronics and Sensors Work
Discover how tiny electrical currents are tamed to measure the physical world. Build an intuitive mental model of circuits, sensors, and the quantum physics powering modern silicon chips.
Build Your First Smart Gadget
Stop just looking at gadgets and start building them. Learn how to control electricity with code and sensors to create your own interactive inventions.
Start Everyday Electronics in Action today.
Download Tomo, search Everyday Electronics in Action, and play your first lesson in under a minute.