Help With 8th Grade Science Fair Project: Magnetic Levitation Train

[the go to guy]

Originally posted by Cliff_J
Nice to see you tested your magnets. Sounds like you're already exploring magnetism pretty well. Couple more thoughts:

1) Fundamentally, what is the inductrack? It has permanent magents on the train, and coils on the track. The motion of the train turns the coils into - magnets. Replace the coils with magnets and you get the same effect without requiring motion. You'll likely end up with the same 'tunnel' to locate the train above the track, but at least now you don't need 6 MPH to do it. (There's a hidden hint in this thought)

2) I would think, IMO anyways, a chart of magnetic strength vs. distance would be nice (it will explain more about levitation, and was mentioned in the article). Here's an inexpensive way for you to graph it out using a sheet of paper cut up, a string, a pulley, a styrofoam cup, and some pennies. Here's the setup, side view.


MMMMMMMM PPPPPPPPPP MMMMMMMMM
AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAA
GGGGGGGG PPPPPPPPPP GGGGGGGGG------------\
NNNNNNNN EEEEEEEEEE NNNNNNNNN           O|
EEEEEEEE RRRRRRRRRR EEEEEEEEE            |
TTTTTTTT SSSSSSSSSS TTTTTTTTT          cup


The O is the pulley. A number of sheets of paper are between the two magnets. Probably attach the string with some hot glue. You add pennies to the cup until the magnet pulls away. You record how many pennies for each sheet of paper you remove/add. Once you get too many sheets of paper, the magnets won't stick. No paper, lots of pennies. What do the results look like in-between? Is it a straight line, or a curve when you graph it out? Hint: that could be an early hypothesis that ties into the levitation hypothesis later, but its nice and simple.

Cliff

please excuse me if this is a domb Q but wht were the mmmmmmm pppppppp mmmmmmmmm aaaaaaaaaa gggggggggg eeeeeeeeee nnnnnnnnnn rrrrrrrr sssssssss and tttttttttt sopposed to be??

and is the string and pully hooked up to the top magnet or some pieces of paper? (i don't understand the diagram)

 

[Cliff_J]

You don't appreciate my ascii art? Its a side view. I guess a picture isn't always worth a thousand words...

Ok, a magnet is glued on its side to a horizontal surface. You cut paper into little strips, put 6 strips one on top the other in a stack, turn them on their side, and then place on the face of the magnet. You put another magnet on the other side of the paper. You'll notice the magnet doesn't stick as well as if the paper wasn't there. You glue the string to the back of the 2nd magnet, run it over a pulley and to the cup. You add pennies to cup and now have a numeric way to describe how much each sheet of paper affected the strength. Then 5 strips and test, 4 strips and test,3,2,1,0 strips, recording the number each time. Maybe 7,8,9... and so on until the stacked paper is too thick for the two magnets don't stick because the paper holds them apart. The cup and pennies tells you what happens in-between. Before you do this test, what do you think the graph will look like?

Cliff

 

[the go to guy]

i want to say thanks to everyone for hellpin me out sooo much
the science fair is this tuesday and i think i have a good chance of doing well i have been workin on it nonstop and its payin off


THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU

and especially i want to say thanks to clif_j for staying with me and answering all my questians

 

[Ebolamonk3y]

$$B=\frac{\mu I}{2\pi r}$$ r=radius from wire