Optics & Light Calculations: Refraction, Lenses, Mirrors & Photometry

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Turn refractive indices into the speed of light and the wavelength inside eight materials, then identify an unknown sample from its measured speed.
• Apply Snell's law with SIN, ASIN, RADIANS and DEGREES to nine rays, flag total internal reflection and find the critical angle of each boundary.
• Solve the thin lens equation for eight setups, from a camera to a projector and a magnifier, read magnification and image type, and size a projected slide.
• Convert focal lengths to dioptres, combine lenses in contact and with a gap, and estimate the lens power that would correct a far point or help with reading (educational model).
• Find focal lengths, image distances and magnifications for six real-world mirrors, then design the curvature of a make-up mirror for a wanted magnification.
• Convert a bulb's lumens into candela, calculate the illuminance in lux at seven distances, find how close a reader must sit for 300 lux and chart the inverse-square curve.
• Size the LED lighting of a small office with the lumen method: lumens needed per room, whole fixtures, the illuminance you actually get and the lighting power density.
• Turn nine wavelengths from UV to infrared into frequency, photon energy in electronvolts and photons per second, then chart energy against wavelength.