Motor Summary

In physics class we made motors with simple batteries, paper clips, copper wires, and rubber bands. We bent the paper clips to be able to hold the wire over the magnet while still receiving current. Once this loop was created and the current flowed, the magnetic field applied a force to the current carrying wire and this force made the wire spin. This spin was caused by the current flowing through the wire at certain intervals. After looping the wire around and around to have a strong circle to have enough current to be affected by the magnet we scrapped the wired on the bottom of both sides, making a complete circuit that allowed the current to flow through. Since the direction of the current over the top of the magnet is perpendicular a force is applied to the wire the magnetic field applies a force away from the magnet. The wire feels this force and is turned since it is the only action it can take to move farther away from the magnet. Once it is turned the scrapped parts of the wire are no longer exposed to the paper clips and the complete circuit is broken and the flow of the current stops. This is the desired outcome, now there is no current for the magnates’ magnetic field to act on in the wire and there is no force put onto the wire. The force the wire felt at first should have been sufficient enough for it to spin all the way around and expose the scraped ends to the paper clips and again complete the circuit having current flow through it. The magnetic field applies a force to it again and the process repeats making the wire spin continually. If the wire were scraped to allow current to flow anywhere else as well as the one spot on the bottom the motor would not work. The magnetic field applies a repelling force on a current carrying wire. Initially this is needed to get the spin of the wire, but if the wire spins around and there is still current flowing through the wire then it will be repelled by the magnetic field. The repelling force on the wire will cause it to bounce back and forth, allowing neither side to approach the magnetic field.

The spin of the motor can be used to power machines and other thing. My motor could  maybe be attached to a small set of fan blades and spin them, but I don’t think that the small motor I created could be used to power anything substantial.