Archive for the ‘Moving’ Category

Gauss Rifle

Wednesday, January 16th, 2008

I have tried to build this using Geomag magnets and balls. Track is also necessary, so I have borrowed wooden track of my children.

It seems that Geomag is not very good for construction of Gauss rifle, one problem can be with different size of balls and rods . If the size would be the same it would probably work better.

I have used just two rods, 7 balls, wooden track, piece of paper between rod and wooden track (to put middle of the rod into the same height as middle of the ball in the track) and sticky tape to attach paper and rods to the wooden track.

Electromotor

Monday, January 7th, 2008

Today, I want to show you, how to build a simple electromotor using your Geomag (and few addittional parts).What you need:

  • 8 rods (7 in one color, 1 in another)
  • 6 balls
  • a piece of wire
  • a battery (AA battery or similar will be enough)
  • a knife

Prepare piece of wire about 10 cm long with both ends skinned off.

From Geomag pieces (8 rods and 5 balls), build a small pyramid with all rods on the bottom in the same color. One different rod will help you to see movement. You also want to maximaze magnetic power, so all rods connected to the top of the pyramid should be with the same polarity (if you remove ball, each rod should repel all others).

Than, add sixth ball to the top of the pyramid and connect that pyramid to the bottom of battery. Hold a battery in your hand, connect one end of the wire to the top of the battery and second end to the ball which is on the top of the pyramid.

You should have something like that at the end.

Be carefull, wire can become quite hot after a while, you may want to wear gloves or otherwise protect your skin…

Original idea comes from http://www.supermagnete.de/, I have replaced their super-magnet with Geomag pyramid…