Electric Motor Magnetism Project
Supplies:
- 1 battery
- 4 magnets
- 50cm copper wire
- masking tape
Procedure
- Using the copper wire, make a circle by looping the wire several times around your fingers
- Slide the coil you made off of your fingers
- Take two separate pieces of copper wire, and wrap them loosely around each “end” of the circle allowing it to be suspended/for movement
- Taking another two separate pieces of copper wire, twist them to make needle-like shapes and attach them to the terminal ends of the battery using the masking tape
- Thread each loose end of the wire attached to the coil through the needle-like wires that are attached to the battery
- Vertically place the magnets onto the battery structure
- Watch the coil start to vibrate
- Monitor for heat energy
Results
The “motor” will vibrate the coil until either internal battery resistance becomes equal to the electromotive force (making battery “dead”), or you disconnect the circuit. The circuit will also heat up as there is internal resistance and external resistance that will translate to heat energy.
Why?
The copper wire (attached to the needle structures and terminals of battery) created a closed circuit, where current could exit battery and flow through the circuit. Current flows from the negative terminal of the battery, through the circuit, and to the positive terminal of the battery. The copper loop in the circuit creates its own magnetic field, which you can determine by the “Right Hand Rule.”
***Right-Hand Rule: when you have your thumb up, and both your pointer and middle finger out like the image, you are able to determine the magnetic field orientation , the direction of current, and the force’s motion.***
In the circuit created, the current is able to travel through said circuit in the coil: known as the armature of the motor. This current causes a magnetic field in the coil, that causes it’s vibration.
***”The armature is an electromagnet made by coiling thin wire around two or more poles of a metal core.” (-https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/motor5.htm)***
The Magnets posses both a North and South Pole. The interactions between the North-south causes attraction, and while the interactions between the same-charged poles will repel each other (north-north and south-south): the law of charges. This magnetic field is not perpendicular to the magnets on the battery; therefore, some of the wire’s magnetic field with cause vibration.
By: Ryann, Liza, and Shaylyn