Day 6 – Mini Rolling Motors

Nothing could be cooler than magnets. Nothing! They defy gravity, and they defy you.

Somehow intelligence just seems to drop when magnets come around. They won’t go together. Watch this… Oh, come on you can do it. I meant to do that. Come on get together, no wait not that side. Yeah let’s not use this part.

But get yourself some really powerful magnets and a little electricity and you can really kick it up a notch. When I say powerful I mean really powerful, specifically rare earth magnets. This is a roll of neodymium iron boron magnets or N.I.B.’s. It’s one of the strongest magnets materials available at room temperature. So if you wanna get something more powerful you’re going to have to super cooling things. That’s just not in the scope of our Christmas project.

See these chipped with spacers, cuz there really hard to get apart. Ahh… This is not an exaggeration it’s really hard. If you let them go like this, ow. They’ll pinch your fingers.

Magnets are cool almost mystical the way they can attract and repel each other. And some people take that to an extreme, I’m healing myself with the magnetic energy. So why do you need them so powerful? Cuz the stuff were going to show you won’t work with your ordinary sissy magnets from home. There pretty much impossible to find at your local store, your best bet is to get them online.

While you’re waiting for them to come in the mail pick up some solid copper wire between twelve and twenty gage and a few double a batteries. Now we’re talkin’.

Put a couple of on one end of the battery, connect the poles and you get a mini motor. Actually it’s called a homopolor motor. He’s going the right direction but if you flip the magnets, it’ll go the opposite direction. It wasn’t really designed for that though. You have to balance it just right or it will go spinning off, also smaller lighter wires can go faster.

I could watch that all day, but I won’t. Why? Cuz it’s time for the roller derby.

Put a couple of magnets at the ends of each battery and make sure the polarity is opposite, if it doesn’t work at first. Flip the magnets to reverse the polarity, and if that doesn’t work try it on the other side. Seriously there’s only four combinations, I think you can get it right.

Now get some wire, strip the plastic of the end and make the metal part into a hook. Rest it on the magnets and its go time. You can off set the batteries, now he’s got a limp. I think you can see why this will be the coolest Christmas project ever. Look at him go!

What? Not Christmassy enough for your? You can use festive colors like red and white. Paint your battery to look like a candy cane. Do whatever it takes.

Just to prove this table isn’t slanted, we’ll go both directions. Okay maybe it’s a little slanted. But he is going. [Quiet Laugh] Not exactly a speed demon, but it’s a really cool, really simple motor. And the kids can electrocute themselves playing with it. You need bigger batteries for that. Maybe next year, if you’re good. Yeah next year we’ll be using these and a motorcycle battery.

Hundred and twenty pound pull strength. Wow.

Transcribed by: Joshua Y.

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