Electric Motors

Today and yesterday, our class built motors out of simple components. We were supposed to use 4 inch nails, a cork, wires, a wood board, aluminum brushes, wooden stick as an axle, small nails for commutators, and paper clips as bearings. Two nails were supposed to be spaces 3 cm from one another and 5 cm from the other two. The wooden axle penetrates the cork and placed on the paper clip bearings. The brushes were held onto the board with thumb tacks between the bearings and the nails. The brushes were supposed to touch the commutator pins. When the pins touched the brushed the current flow reversed, so the cork would keep on spinning. One side just keeps on pushing up and the other just keeps on pushing down. The south side and north side of 2 magnets are on both sides to repel the magnetic field created by the wires. Most groups' worked better the first day than on the second day.