Physics Education

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Modeling of fundamental electronic circuits by the Euler method using

the Python programming language
To cite this article: Ljubomir Gojkovi et al 2020 Phys. Educ. 55 055016

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 PAPER
Phys. Educ. 55 (2020) 055016 (11pp) iopscience.org/ped

Modeling of fundamental
electronic circuits by the
Euler method using the
Python programming
language
Ljubomir Gojković1, Stefan Malijević1
and Stevan Armaković2,1
1
High School ‘Jovan Jovanović Zmaj’, Zlatne Grede 4, 21000, Novi Sad, Serbia
2
University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Physics, Trg Dositeja
Obradovića 4, 21000, Novi Sad, Serbia

E-mail: stevan.armakovic@df.uns.ac.rs

Abstract
In this work three examples of textbook circuits (resistor-capacitor,
resistor-inductor and resistor-inductor-capacitor) have been modeled by
employing the Euler method for the approximate solution of differential
equations using algorithms implemented in the Python programming
language. The aim of this work was to demonstrate how simple, yet highly
effective, algorithms can be neatly implemented in one of the currently most
popular programming languages for scientific applications. At the same time,
the visualization of the results allows for a detailed introduction to the
properties of the circuits most frequently commented on in all the relevant
textbooks. Our code, as provided to the reader, includes detailed comments,
and can easily be modified to model other similar systems. Instructions on
how to prepare tasks for students have been also provided.

Keywords: RL, RC and RLC circuits, Python, Euler method

Supplementary material for this article is available online

1. Introduction is too complicated to be solved analytically,

or its exact solution requires tedious and time-
Many scientific problems do not have an exact consuming procedures to be undertaken.
solution and in such situations, approximate meth- Physics students have the opportunity to
ods have to be applied [1]. Typical examples become familiar with various approximate meth-
include cases where a problem is described or ods at some point during their undergraduate stud-
modeled by a certain differential equation, which ies. However, students in high schools rarely get

1361-6552/20/055016+11$33.00 1 © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd

L Gojković et al
the chance to see how certain problems can be physics, become familiar with the differential
treated numerically, without the need to apply forms of the equations that govern the properties
complicated mathematical procedures that they of fundamental circuit components. In conjunc-
will learn in years to come. tion with basic-level programing skills, these dif-
Approximate methods are most frequently ferential equations can be solved relatively easily,
iterative procedures that are most easily solved even by high school students.
by applying mathematical or programming lan- In this work we demonstrate how a simple
guages. In recent years, one programming lan- but effective application of the Euler method can
guage has gained exceptional attention thanks to be used and implemented in the Python program-
its simplicity and flexibility. That programming ing language, for the purpose of modeling RL,
language is Python, which has been employed in RC and RLC circuits. All of the code has been
the vast majority of scientific software solutions provided and is commented in detail. The corres-
[2, 3]. ponding python programs have been provided as
Although high school students usually do the supplementary materials (available online at
not have the mathematical skills to be able to (https://stacks.iop.org/PED/55/055016/mmedia)).
solve relatively complicated differential equa- At the end of each chapter, instructions are
tions, their programming skills can easily allow provided on how to prepare tasks for students
them to deal numerically with certain types using the provided code.
of problems. For example, electronic systems
described by differential equations, such as text-
book example circuits, can be studied effectively
2. Computational details and methods
using the commonly-employed Euler method [4]. All the programs have been written in the integ-
These textbook circuits are resistor-inductor (RL), rated development environment (IDE) known as
resistor-capacitor (RC) and resistor-inductor- Thonny [17, 18]. This IDE comes built in to
capacitor (RLC) circuits. Python version 3.7, and is particularly useful for
The above-mentioned electronic circuits beginners or for teaching purposes. The numpy
exhibit important properties that are fundamental [19] and matplotilb [20] packages for Python were
to analogue electronics and the examples of used for mathematical functions and the plotting
applications using these circuits are numerous of graphs, respectively.
[6, 7]. Different variants of the RC and RL cir- Three of the fundamental circuit components
cuits have been used as different types of filters; are resistors (R), capacitors (C) and inductors (L).
they can also be used for time delays or to filter out They are considered in all the textbooks at prac-
undesired frequencies [8–10]. In practice, capa- tically all levels of physics education. The equa-
citors (and RC circuits) are usually preferred over tions that describe the voltages across these com-
inductors, since they can be more easily man- ponents are as follows:
ufactured and are generally physically smaller. ´
These circuits can also form a single-pole filter. VR = iR, VC = C1 i · dt and VL = L dtdi
. (1)
RL circuits are commonly used in the chokes of In combination with Kirchhoff’s voltage law,
fluorescent tubes [11]. one can obtain differential equations that govern
RLC circuits have many applications as oscil- the properties of the corresponding circuits, which
lator circuits. Radio receivers and televisions use will be discussed in the following sections.
them for tuning, to select a narrow frequency The Euler method for the approximate solu-
range from the ambient radio waves [12]. They tion of differential equations is based on the fol-
can be also used as band-pass filters, band-stop fil- lowing equation:
ters, low-pass or high-pass filters, etc [13–16].
In terms of the high school physics cur- yj+1 = yj + dt · f (xj , yj ) , (2)
riculum, these circuits are most frequently only
treated alge braically. However, advanced high which provides an approximate solution for the
school students and high school students aim- differential equation y′ = f (x, y) for certain val-
ing for physics majors, with special abilities in ues of x, with the initial condition f (x0 ) = y0 . This

September 2020 2 P hy s . E d u c . 5 5 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 0 5 5 0 1 6
 Modeling of fundamental electronic circuits by the Euler method

application of the Euler method, for several reas-

ons. Although its exact solution is not that diffi-
cult to derive, it is usually beyond the scope of the
physics curriculum in high schools.
It should be noted that when implementing
the Euler method in a programming language, one
should rewrite the differential equation in such a
way that the differential terms are located on one
side of the equation, and all the other quantities
and terms are on the other side of the equation.
In this particular case, the differential equation
Scheme 1. RL circuit.
should be rewritten in the following form:
equation can be relatively easily derived in three di V−R·i
dt = L .
(5)
ways: graphically, through expansion by a Taylor
series or using the finite difference approximation. Once we have done this, we can use the finite
In this work the derivation of the Euler method difference approximation to replace the derivative
will not be covered, and we are referring readers term in the following way:
to known textbooks covering the numerical meth-
i[j+1]−i[j]
ods [4]. di
dt ≈ ∆t . (6)

Now, using equation (6), (5) can be written

3. Results and discussion as:
3.1. RL circuit i[j+1]−i[j] V−R·i
∆t = L ,
(7)
To begin with, we are analyzing one of the
simplest circuits considered in the physics and after a small rearrangement, we arrive at the
curriculum—a circuit consisting of a battery (R) final form of the equation that will be used in our
and an inductor (L), scheme 1. Python program:
Following the application of Kirchhoff’s
voltage law, one can obtain the differential equa- i [j + 1] = i [j] + ∆t · V−RL·i[j] . (8)
tion for an RL circuit:
Furthermore, we are providing the code in
V= L di
dt + Ri, (3) Python and detailed comments for the solution of
differential equation (3), using the Euler method.
where V is the constant applied voltage, R is the The code is as follows:
resistance of the resistor and L is the inductance.
The exact resulting solution for this differential 1. import numpy as np
equation is: 2. import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
( ) 3.
I (t) = V
R · 1 − e−(R/L)t . (4) 4. def di_dt(i):
5. return (V-R∗ i)/(L)
This last equation shows how current changes 6.
with time, depending on the values of resistance 7. def i_ex(t):
and inductance. Over time, the second term in par- 8. return (V/R)∗ (1-np.exp(-t∗ (R/L)))
enthesis becomes negligible, because of the minus 9.
sign within the exponential function. That is the 10. V = 50
reason why the saturated value for the current 11. R=2
intensity is equal to V/R. 12. L=3
In terms of modeling in physics, differen- 13. i0 = 0
tial equation (3) is a very good candidate for the 14. t0 = 0

September 2020 3 P hy s . E d u c . 5 5 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 0 5 5 0 1 6
L Gojković et al
15. tf = 10 setting the final value of time to be 10 s. That
16. n = 21 means that we will have a graphical representation
17. dt = (tf-t0)/(n-1) of how I changes with time over 10 s. Of course,
18. print(''step size is: '', dt) the final value can be set to any other value, but for
19. the present values of the parameters, the graphical
20. t = np.linspace(t0,tf,n) representation will be the most suitable if the final
21. i = np.zeros(n) value of time is around 10 s.
22. We next define the number of steps we will
23. #Euler_1stODE solver have in the iteration procedure. For this purpose,
24. for z in range(0,n-1): in line 16 we set the value of n to be 101. In other
25. t[0] = t0 words, the interval between the starting and final
26. i[0] = i0 values of t (t0 and tf ) will be divided into n points.
27. i[z+1] = i[z] + dt∗ di_dt(i[z]) This means that we will have n − 1 sub-intervals
28. in the range between t0 and tf . Now it is possible
29. #Plotting section to define the value of the step, dt, that is used in
30. plt.title(''RL circuit'') the main equation of Euler’s algorithm.
31. plt.plot(t,i,label= '' approximation'') Before writing the main loop that will solve
32. plt.plot(t,i_ex(t),label= '' exact'') the differential equation, we have to define two
33. plt.legend(loc=’center right’) lists. The first list will contain the values of t,
34. plt.xlabel(''Time [s]'') which will be plotted using the x-axis of the graph-
35. plt.ylabel(''Current [A]'') ical representation. For this purpose, in line 20
36. plt.ylim(bottom=0) we used the linspace command, which divides the
37. plt.xlim(left=0) desired interval into n values.
38. plt.grid() The second list is the list that contains the
39. plt.show() values of i. We will initially set all of these val-
ues to zero, using the command zeros in line
In the first two lines we are importing the two 21, which generates the list with n members
Python packages—numpy and matplotlib. The and sets each member of that list to zero. Then,
former contains mathematical functions, while the using the loop that follows, we will be repla-
second package serves for plotting the results. In cing these values with the solution for each
lines four to eight, we are defining functions. In iteration.
lines four and five, we are defining in practical Now comes the main loop. We set our counter
terms the differential equation to be solved via z to iterate from zero to n − 1, in order to cover
the Euler method. In lines seven and eight, we are all of the sub-intervals in the interval between t0
defining the function which is the exact solution and tf . In line 25, we actually set the initial val-
of differential equation (1), so that we can com- ues of I and t in the corresponding lists (defined
pare the exact and approximate solutions. Notice in lines 20 and 21), by replacing the initial value
that the numpy package was used for defining the of those lists with I0 and t0 . Now comes the main
exponential function. In lines 10–12 we are defin- line of the algorithm, line 27, in which we imple-
ing the numerical values of the circuit compon- ment the equation in practical terms (6). Finally,
ents: V, R and L. the last 10 lines provide instructions to matplot-
One of the crucial initial steps in the applic- lib on how to present the acquired results. Line 31
ation of the Euler method is to define the initial instructs Python to plot the approximate results,
values. In terms of equation (1), this means that while line 32 instructs Python to plot the exact
we have to define the initial values for i and t. The results. In figure 1, we present the results of the
moment when the switch is closed is the moment code provided above for the two values of n = 21
when the whole process starts (t = 0), and at that and n = 101. The other parameters are: V = 50 V,
particular moment, I = 0. Therefore, the starting R = 2Ω and L = 3 H.
or initial values of these two parameters are zero, Of course, the accuracy of the presented code
as written in lines 13 and 14. In line 15 we are depends on the number of sub-intervals taken into

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 Modeling of fundamental electronic circuits by the Euler method

Scheme 2. RC circuit.

n by several orders of magnitude does not impose

a challenge for standard computers.
What is interesting about the RL circuit
itself, as can be seen in the exact solution of the
differential equation (1), is the fact that the ratio
R/L defines in practical terms how quickly (or
slowly) the current will saturate. A higher R/L
ratio means that the current will reach the satur-
ated value (equal to V/R) quicker and vice versa.
The code provided can be used to illustrate this
feature of RL circuits effectively. For example,
students can increase the value of R to 10.0Ω, run
the code, and then decrease the value to 0.5Ω, and
they can then report their observations.
Figure 1. I = f (t) for an RL circuit; (a) n = 21 and (b)
n = 101.
3.2. RC circuit
Another simple circuit regularly found in the
account. The higher the number n is, the smal- physics curriculum is the RC circuit. Instead of an
ler dt is and the more accurate the results will be. inductor, this circuit has a capacitor C, as presen-
In figure 1, the results obtained are presented for ted in scheme 2.
two different values of n, so that the difference in The usual path to deriving the corresponding
accuracy can be observed by students. differential equation is to start from q = C · Vc ,
To obtain figure 1(a), n was set to 21. That and differrentiate it with respect to time. This
is a rather low number when it comes to the yields the following well-known equation:
number of subintervals, so the step size is rather
dq
high. This further leads to the slight discrepancy dt = C dV
dt ,
c
(9)
between the exact and approximate solutions, as
indicated in figure 3(a) by different colored lines. which after rearrangement yields:
Although n takes a rather low value, the accur- i dVc
(10)
C = dt .
acy of the approach is fantastic, since the differ-
ence between the exact and approximate results is Following the application of Kirchhoff’s voltage
very small. However, if n is increased to a slightly law in the case of the RC circuit, and taking into
higher value, for example to n = 101, the accur- account equation (10), one can obtain the differ-
acy increases dramatically and it is very difficult ential equation for an RC circuit in the following
to observe a difference between the exact and form:
approximate results (figure 1(b)). Of course, the
code is executed very quickly, and an increase of R di i
dt + C = 0,
(11)

September 2020 5 P hy s . E d u c . 5 5 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 0 5 5 0 1 6
L Gojković et al
where R is the resistance of the resistor, i is the 28.
current intensity and C is the capacitance. The 29. #Plotting section
exact solution of differential equation (11) is the 30. plt.title(''RC circuit'')
following: 31. plt.plot(t,i,label= '' approximation'')
32. plt.plot(t,i_ex(t),label= '' exact'')
i = VR e− RC .
t
(12) 33. plt.legend(loc=’center right’)
34. plt.xlabel(''Time [s]'')
As in the previous case, expression (12) 35. plt.ylabel(''Current [A]'')
is frequently provided to students as-is, and its 36. plt.ylim(bottom=0)
exact derivation is beyond the scope of the high 37. plt.xlim(left=0)
school physics curriculum. Nevertheless, through 38. plt.grid()
an application of Euler’s method, equation (11) 39. plt.show()
can be approximated with a procedure identical to
the one presented in the previous chapter. Follow- This time we are not going to comment on
ing the same procedure presented in the previous each and every line of the code, because the code
chapter, we arrive at the following equation, to be itself is totally analogous to the previously presen-
implemented in Python code: ted code for the case of the RL circuit. Instead, we
( ) will emphasize the most important differences. Of
i [j + 1] = i [j] − ∆t · Ri[·jC] . (13) course, the equations defined at the start now cor-
respond to the RC circuit, different numerical val-
The Python code for the approximate solution ues for V and R are considered, and instead of L,
of (11) via the Euler method is: we now have C. The corresponding numerical val-
ues are V = 100 V, R = 20Ω and C = 0.03 F.
1. import numpy as np Probably the most important difference in
2. import matplotlib.pyplot as plt comparison with the previous code is related to
3. the initial value of the current. Instead of zero,
4. def di_dt(i): the initial value of the current is V/R, and the
5. return -(i)/(R∗ C) explanation for this value arises by analyzing the
6. RC circuit. Once the switch is closed, the cur-
7. def i_ex(t): rent starts flowing through the circuit and at the
8. return (V/R)∗ (np.exp(-t/(R∗ C))) very beginning, the voltage across the capacitor is
9. zero, and one can imagine that the whole circuit
10. V = 100 consists of the battery and R. Therefore, the max-
11. R = 20 imal and initial value of the current, according to
12. C = 0.03 Ohm’s law, is equal to V/R. However, as the time
13. i0 = V/R passes, the plates of the capacitor are charging
14. t0 = 0 until they are fully charged. Once the capacitor is
15. tf = 5 fully charged, the current stops passing through
16. n = 21 the circuit. Therefore, the initial value of time is
17. dt = (tf-t0)/(n-1) t = 0, while the initial value of current is i = V/R,
18. print(''step size: '', dt) and the final value of current is if = 0. We present
19. the results of the provided code in figure 2.
20. t = np.linspace(t0,tf,n) The solution of differential equation (8)
21. i = np.zeros(n) shows that the current is dropping exponentially
22. as time passes by. As in the case of the RL circuit,
23. #Euler_1stODE solver a rather low value of n = 21 generates the approx-
24. for z in range(0,n-1): imate result (blue colored line in figure 2(a))
25. t[0] = t0 which differs enough, in comparison to the exact
26. i[0] = i0 result, to be observable by students. The increase
27. i[z+1] = i[z] + dt∗ di_dt(i[z]) of n to 101 produces an approximate result, which

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 Modeling of fundamental electronic circuits by the Euler method

Scheme 3. RLC circuit.

requires the solution of a second order differential

equation. Upon applying Kirchhoff’s voltage law,
one obtains the following differential equation for
an RLC circuit:
2
L ddt2i + R di 1
dt + C i = 0.
(14)

Obtaining the exact solution for (14) requires

a deeper knowledge of differential equations,
which is usually beyond the scope of the high
school physics curriculum. The general solution
of equation (14) is:

i = C1 · ek1 t + C2 ek2 t , (15)

Figure 2. I = f (t) for an RC circuit; a) n = 21 and b) where k1 and k2 are the roots of the auxiliary equa-
n = 101. tion corresponding to differential equation (14).
The auxiliary differential equation is:
almost completely coincides with the exact solu- Lk2 + Rk + C1 = 0. (16)
tion (figure 2(b)).
A brief inspection of the solution provided and it is roots are:
by (8) indicates that the current drop principally √ 2 4L √ 2 4L
R −C R −
depends on R · C. This is of course a great oppor- k1 = − 2L + 2L , k2 = − 2L − 2L C .
R R

tunity to use the provided code to confirm this (17)

fact. In this regard, students are encouraged to run When it comes to the approximate solution
the code for different values of R · C, in order to of second order differential equations, they are
inspect how the current drop changes. Higher val- solved in practically the same way as first order
ues of R · C will produce a slower current drop to differential equations. The basic idea is to apply
zero, while lower values of R · C will produce a equation (1). However, equation (1) is formed
faster current drop to zero. for first order differential equations and cannot
be applied directly for the approximate solution
of second order differential equations. However,
3.3. RLC circuit if the second order differential equation is trans-
The RLC circuit consists of a battery, a resistor formed to a system of two first order differential
(R), an inductor (L) and a capacitor (C), as presen- equations, then equation (1) can be applied simul-
ted in scheme 3. taneously to both of them.
The application of the Euler algorithm in the Therefore, the first step in applying the Euler
case of this circuit is particularly important, as it method for the approximate solution of second

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L Gojković et al
order differential equations is to transform it to 2. import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
a system of two first order differential equations. 3.
How is this done? We pick the first derivative and 4. R = 20
call it a new quantity. We then write the second 5. C = 0.002
order derivative with respect to the newly intro- 6. L = 20
duced quantity. Let us see how is that related to 7. t0 = 0
differential equation (14). We replace the di
dt with 8. tf = 10
some new quantity: 9. i0 = 2
10. n = 1001
di
dt = s. (18) 11. dt = (tf-t0)/(n-1)
12. print(''step size: '', dt)
With s introduced, the second order time 13.
derivative of i now becomes: 14. t = np.linspace(t0,tf,n)
2
d i ds (19) 15. i = np.zeros(n)
dt2 = dt . 16. s = np.zeros(n)
Taking into account equations (18) and (19), 17.
the differential equation (14) now can be trans- 18. #Euler_2ndODE solver
formed into the following system of two first order 19. for j in range(0,n-1):
differential equations: 20. t[0] = t0
21. i[0] = i0
di
dt = s, (20) 22. i[j+1] = i[j] + dt∗ (s[j]) #equation (15)
23. s[j+1] = s[j] - dt∗ (s[j])∗ (R/L) -
dt∗ (1/(L∗ C))∗ i[j+1] #equation (16)
dt + R · s + C = 0.
L ds 1 24.
(21)
25. plt.plot(t,i)
After a small rearrangement of (21), the sys- 26. plt.xlabel(''Time [s]'')
tem now becomes: 27. plt.ylabel(''Current [A]'')
di
28. plt.title(''RLC circuit'')
dt = s, (22) 29. plt.grid()
30. plt.show()
ds
dt = −s · RL − L1·C , (23) We are now going to comment the most
important parts of this code. In comparison with
and after applying the procedure described for the previous two code listings, in this code we
obtaining equations (6)–(8), the system of equa- will not be defining the functions directly at the
tions to be implemented in code becomes: beginning and we are not going to include exact
i [j + 1] = i [j] + ∆t · s [j] , (24) solutions, for the sake of simplicity. Instead, only
equations (24) and (25) will be defined in the main
loop. In the first 12 lines we have defined the
( ) ( ) numerical values of the parameters that are neces-
s [j + 1] = s [j] − ∆t · s [j] · RL − ∆t · L1·C .
sary for solving the equations. As in the previ-
(25)
ous two code listings, in lines 14 and 15 we have
Equations (24) and (25) are to be solved defined the values of t to be used for the calcu-
simultaneously, and because they are mutually lations and a list of values for i. So far, we have
dependent (s [j] is present in both of them), they generated a list of values for i, but we also must
are referred to as coupled equations. We provide generate a list of values for the newly introduced
below Python code for the solution of these equa- quantity s (in line 16), because we are solving two
tions: equations, practically speaking.
Now comes the main loop, which is com-
1. import numpy as np pletely analogous to the previous two listings,

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 Modeling of fundamental electronic circuits by the Euler method

with the difference that it contains one more equa-

tion (line 23) corresponding to the newly intro-
duced quantity s. We will not be referring to the
physical meaning of the quantity s, which is not
necessary at all, since this quantity is only used to
obtain the values of i. The last six lines provide
instructions on how to plot the results.
Before we plot the results, let us firstly try to
analyze what we can expect. Of course, the result-
ing values of i will depend on the values of R, L
and C. But, in contrast to the previous two code
listings, the situation is a little bit more complic-
ated, because we have three parameters that influ-
ence the value of i. So, it is highly important to Figure 3. Over-damped RLC circuit (R = 500Ω, L =
demonstrate to students that there are means of 20 Hand C = 0.002 F).
deducing what the critical values of these para-
meters could be. In this particular case, the stu-
dents should be referred to the discriminant.
The corresponding auxiliary equation (16) is
of quadratic form and we know the form of the
discriminant, D, for this type of polynomial:

D = b2 − 4ac, (26)

where a, b and c are the coefficients of the quad-

ratic polynomial. The discriminant with respect to
equation (8) takes the following form:

D = R2 − 4 CL . (27)

In the most general case, D can be higher than Figure 4. Critically-damped RLC circuit (R = 200Ω,
zero, equal to zero or lower than zero. So, let us L = 20 Hand C = 0.002 F).
further define the values of L and C as the val-
ues from the code (20 H and 0.002 F), analyze the √
2. If D = 0 → R2 = 4 CL → R = 2 L
R = 200Ω
three general cases and deduce the critical values C
of R:
√ In this particular case, let us set the value of
1. If D > 0 → R2 > 4 CL → R > 2 CL → R > R to be precisely 200Ω. In such a case the ‘critic-
200Ω ally damped’ scenario is obtained, as presented in
figure 4.
Let us run our code with R taking a value This case can be interpreted in the following
significantly higher than 200Ω, for instance let way: i starts to drop, it is heading to equilibrium
us take a value of 500Ω.This value produces and trying to oscillate, but just as it arrives close to
the so-called ‘over-damped’ case, as presented in equilibrium, there is just enough damping to pre-
figure 3. vent it from going through equilibrium and oscil-
It can be seen that i starts to drop towards lating.
equilibrium and tries to oscillate, but very soon
after the initial moment, thanks to the very strong √
damping force, it is driven away from the equilib- 3. If D < 0 → R2 < 4 CL → R < 2 L
C →R<
rium position. 200Ω

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L Gojković et al
of the differential equations, based on the finite
difference approximation. Particular attention was
paid to the RLC circuit, since the modeling of
this circuit is based on a second order differ-
ential equation. The most important features of
the electronic circuits under consideration were
also covered methodologically. Therefore, in each
chapter we provided clear instructions on how to
prepare tasks for students.
The physical systems covered in this work
turned out to be very good examples for mod-
eling at the high-school physics level. From a
mathematical standpoint, the differential equa-
Figure 5. Under-damped RLC circuit (R = 20Ω, L = tions describing these circuits are at a suitable
20 Hand C = 0.002 F). level of difficulty for high school students with
an orientation towards the natural sciences. From
This is the most interesting case. Let us, a computational standpoint, the availability and
for example, set the value of R to 20Ω, thanks simplicity of the Python programming language is
to which we will obtain the so-called ‘under- perfect for these types of applications. This work
damped’ case, as presented in figure 5. also demonstrates how different skills (mathemat-
In the under-damped scenario, the damping ics and programming) can be applied for solving
force is not strong enough to prevent the i from of realistic physical problems.
oscillating. Therefore, i oscillates, however the
oscillations are damped after a certain amount
of time. Of course, the amount of time required Acknowledgments
to fully damp the oscillations increases with the The authors acknowledge the financial support of
lowering of R. Using the numerical values spe- the Ministry of Education, Science and Techno-
cified within figure 5, we can see that after around logical Development of the Republic of Serbia
10 s, i decreases from 2A to 0A. (Grant No. 451-03-68/2020-14/200125).
The specific features of RLC circuits demon-
strated in this chapter are ideal for problem ses-
sions with students. For the selected values of L ORCID iD
and C (or any other combination of two quantit- Stevan Armaković  https://orcid.org/0000-
ies), students could be given a task to find the crit- 0002-8049-9969
ical values that would lead to the presented three
cases, by analyzing the corresponding discrimin- Received 14 April 2020, in final form 6 May 2020
ant. Accepted for publication 20 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6552/ab94d5

4. Conclusions
Three textbook examples of electronic circuits References
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JoVE) education by enrolling the class
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[9] van Drongelen W 2018 Introduction to filters: Stefan Malijević finished ‘Jovan
the RC-circuit In Signal Processing for Jovanović Zmaj’ high school in
Neuroscientists 2nd edn ed W van Drongelen Novi Sad, Serbia, class of students
(New York: Academic) ch 15 pp 307–14 with special abilities in physics. He
[10] Rawlins J C 2000 RL circuit analysis In Basic is interested in physics and plans
AC Circuits 2nd edn ed J C Rawlins to enroll physics studies at the
(Burlington: Newnes) ch 9 pp 303–34 Department of Physics, Faculty of
[11] Kumar K S 2008 Electric Circuits and Networks Science, University of Novi Sad.
(Noida: Pearson)
[12] Makarov S N, Ludwig R and Bitar S J 2016
Practical Electrical Engineering (Berlin:
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[13] Nilsson J W and Riedel S A 2015 Electric Stevan Armaković obtained his PhD
Circuits (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson) at the Department of Physics, Faculty
[14] Chen W K 2004 The Electrical Engineering of Sciences, University of Novi
Handbook (Amsterdam: Elsevier) Sad, where he currently works as an
[15] Knopp T and Buzug T M 2012 Magnetic Assistant Professor. In 2019 he also
Particle Imaging: An Introduction to began teaching ‘Modeling in Physics’
Imaging Principles and Scanner at the ‘Jovan Jovanović Zmaj’ high
Instrumentation (Berlin: Springer) school in Novi Sad, for the students
[16] Annamaa A 2015 Introducing Thonny, a Python with special abilities in physics.
IDE for learning programming Proc. 15th So far he co-authored 106 papers
Koli Calling Conf. on Computing Education published in journals with impact
Research factor. His research activities include application of various
[17] Annamaa A 2015 Thonny, a Python IDE for computational methods in materials and pharmaceutical
learning programming Proc. 2015 ACM science. He is particularly focused to introducing the
Conf. on Innovation and Technology in high school and undergraduate students into the research
Computer Science Education activities. Personal web site: www.armakovic.com.

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