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Magnetic Levitation |
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Levitation
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Why Build a Magnetic Levitation Device?Wacko Sales PitchWant to amaze and impress your friends? Can something be held in mid-air with nothing touching it? Do flying saucers use electrogravitics? How does a maglev vehicle work? Need a super accurate force/weight measurement? Want to measure small changes in gravity? Who says gravity cannot be beaten? Want to see a simple coil levitate a steel ball in a magnetic field? As long as you're building a coilgun, and have: magnet wire, power supply, breadboard, voltmeter, resistors and capacitors, switches, hookup wire, and other miscellaneous parts, why not?! Maglev for Science FairI started this project with my 2nd grade son for a science project. The science fair was on March 16th, 1999, at an elementary school in Washington state. This was a fair, not a competition, where the emphasis is on having fun. Most sane parents would not design a closed-loop feedback control system with a second-grader, but as it turned out we didn't enter the project in the fair after all. It didn't work quite well enough, and the coil would overheat after a few minutes. The benefits of doing this project were many, but not where I expected. I somehow expected to relate some ideas about electronic design. In reality the benefits were probably of more lasting effect. I worked together with my 7-year old and we had a great time. This was a chance for him to cut boards with a saw, drill holes, handle a screwdriver, measure and mark with a square, cut wires, and plug in chips and resistors. We handled parts, learned their names and looked at their symbols in schematics. Some other things we accomplished were: Okay, enough yackity marketing material, let's get on with the technical details you really want. |
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Last Update 2008-06-08
©1998-2023 Barry Hansen |