A Simple Motor

6/4/18

In this short article I'd like to share a very simple motor that my son and I made. Actually, it is a half-motor. You can find out how to do this, and other fun projects, by checking out this electronics kit

Check out our motor:

As you can see, our parts consist of

• two large paperclips
• 1 D battery
• 1 rubberband to keep the wires on the battery
• two copper wires with insulation
• 1 block of foam
• 1 strong magnet
• 1 rubberband to keep the magnet in place
• 1 long wire wrapped into a coil
• sandpaper

This thing spins fast! By the way, the sandpaper is to sand one side of the left and right leads of the coil. That is, if the coil looks like ---O---, to sand say just the top parts of each ---. This is why it is called a "half" motor. When the bare wire contacts the paper clips, the circuit completes and it spins. When the insulated portions of the wire contact the paperclips, the circuit is not complete, and it stops albeit momentarily.

We plan on experimenting by changing the battery, the number of turns of the coil, the strength and size of the magnet, and adding other components, to see what happens.