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

[the go to guy]

i am making a magnetically levitated train for my 8th grade science fair project and i need some help!

questian #1. how can i make the whole track one big electromagnet??
(the track is a 3/4 inch square steel pipe) if i wrap the whole thing in copper wire and put a current through it will that make it an electromagnet??

questian #2.once i get the track to work is there anything that i need to do to the train base itself to get it to repel off of the track??

questian #3. after i get the train and the track to work how do i get the train to propell itself down the track, and stop, and reverse, and so on...?? (without needing to manually do it all myself)[b(]

 

[the go to guy]

i need help fast my fair is in 17 days

 

[the go to guy]

come on someone please

 

[chroot]

I suggest you spend some time at the library learning how the trains work. What you propose to do is a lot more difficult than wrapping wire around pipe.

- Warren

 

[Integral]

What you are describing is actually a pretty complex thing. No you cannot, nor do you want wire wrapped on your main track, your car will need a pretty close ride to maintain control and stability, windings of wire would get in the way. What you are making is called a LINEAR MOTOR do some research on that term. I am not sure what you will find. Generally they require complex control systems to make them move. You need to be able to turn on and off the magnets (either in the track or on the car) in a carefully timed manner to get motion. This requires a relatively complex control system.

For the size you are talking about you should be able to use permanent magnets, perhaps rather then attempt to actually drive the car you could simply let it slide.

 

[the go to guy]

i already tryed to use perminent magnets
i looked up linear moter online and i got nothin but deffinitions of what it is nothing aboult how to make one
does anyone have a plan on how to make one?

what should i do to the trak if i can't just wrap wire around it ??
all the research i did led me to think that wraping wire around the track would work?

 

[enigma]

Maglev trains are one of the more difficult engineering problems currently being worked on today.

You won't be able to get one working for an 8th grade project, much less one that's due in 17 days.

I'd pick another topic.

 

[Cliff_J]

Agreed with above, this is a far more involved project than you might have previously thought.

You could simplify your experiment to something far more achievable even if still somewhat daunting. The levitation part is the most difficult area, so you could (and should) forget it for now.

Ok, now take a toy train, put a permanent magent on the first car. Make some electromagnets by winding some small wire around some small bolts you get at a hardware store. Mount those on piece of wood or something, then the track on top of that maybe on a sheet of 1/4" acrylic found at a home center.

Now turn the coils on/off in sequence to make the train move. To do that you could wire up a circuit with a 555 chip and 4017 chip and some 2N2222 transistors from Radio Shack to sequence the magnets. Or find an old switch with multiple positions that you could use to manually turn the coils on/off, about 100x easier than the circuit.

You could easily fill a notebook with the research and results from just that simple experiment with magnetic propulsion to move a toy train car back and forth a couple feet.

If you think I've given you the entire answer, nothing personal but my apologies, you should pick a different project as this could still be a very ambitious thing to accomplish in 17days with no background.

My 7th grade science fair project was a logic circuit borrowed from an old book about moving a farmer and his corn, goose, and dog across the river in a boat. Spent too much time making the thing pretty and not enough time on soldering...and with a bad relay, it didn't work until the weekend before the fair.

Cliff

 

[LURCH]

It is actually possible to make a maglev with permanent magnets. It won't be propelled by the magnets, but only levitated, so you won't get the controlls to start, stop, reverse, etc., but you'll still get a good "gee-wiz" factor from people seeing the train float up off the trck on magnets. Plus some bonus points when the magnets work without a power source. You can make it an http://www.skytran.net/press/sciam01.htm . This requires a magnet arrangement known as a Hallbock Array. I'm not sure how difficult that would be to construct, but I think it's a lot easier than other maglev designs.

 

[the go to guy]

what would hapen if i wraped the whole thing in small wire and use permanant magnets on the train
then i used a toggle switch and a dimmer switch

will the train move with current against the current or will it just sit there??
...then will the train slow down if i "dim" the current going throug the wire . then i slowly shut of the current entirely and flip the toggle to change the direction of the current and slowly turn the dimmer on again... will the change of current cause the train to change direction?[?] [?]

 

[the go to guy]

or do u think i should still change my project[?]



if there is ANY way of geting this done i want to try for it.. i want to be challenge and feel proud of myself after I am done... and i will work SO hard on this project (that is if there is any possible way to accomplish this) so if there is somethin that would help me out in this let me know I WOULD BE SOOOOOOO GREATFUL TO YOU!

 

[Micky]

Try here

Can't see it working in 17 days unless you buy one in kit form.

 

[Cliff_J]

go to guy - I understand the enthusiasm for accomplishing a difficult task, it has its own rewards. But note the link that Lurch posted has a lot of very valuable information on it. It is a site dedicated to creating a simple and easy mag-lev train. But how many years did this idea gestate before a working model was created?

You would be far better served with a project that was finished and demonstrated the scientific method (hypothesis and all that) with good documentation than a project that's barely started and hasn't moved past the idea phase.

Regarding your questions, a wire wrapped around the rod used as the track might suck the train right against the rod (or push it off) if you could get enough current to flow and had enough turns of wire. The same could be done with the permanent magnet and a nail. Very difficult. Think of balancing a bowling ball on top of your head while standing on ice and juggling three balls.

Using the dimmer would only adjust with how much force the train would be stuck to the rod (or how far it would push off). You might construct a couple walls to locate the magnet on top of the rod. But it will want to move, and then fall quickly. Then four walls, and you could levitate it (or suck it down) but that's zero movement forward/backward. So at a minimum, you'd need two walls and many coils and complex circuits to pull off levitation and movement, tough task.

What is your hypothesis?

 

[the go to guy]

nnnnnooooooo that's no what i meen its not a flat base. its a biger piece of pipe that fits AROUND the track ot on top of it (that way it will have stabillity) it looks like this
/\
\/ (track)


/\
/ \
\ /
\/ (train) then the permanent magnets would be mounted on the inside of the train and the coil would be on the outside of the track and the train is fited over the track and the track is turned on

then i get to my hypothisis. the track will push out on the track in all directions thus keeping the train very stable

 

[the go to guy]

about that link... how would i go about puting it togaither and how do i arange the magnets? i need that info put into laymens terms

 

[Cliff_J]

Lets back up a step. If you have a magnet, you have a north & south pole. Opposites attract and likes repel.

You can't just have two magnets, one a permanent magnet and one electromagnet surrounding it. You need a bunch of the electromagnets, and the ones on top need more power to offset the force excerted on the permanent magnet by gravity. The rest of the magnets would help hold the one in place in the center, but needs a nice feedback loop to do so otherwise the permanent magnet is going to just smash into one of the magnets.

Circular magnets do exist, but the N/S poles are inline with the circle (if you look through them one pole is near you and the other is away from you). You need to use the poles (attract/repel) to pull of what you want to do.

There's a diagram on the second or third page of that link shows how to set them up. The only hard part I see is winding the coils for the track, its not very specific but their test model has like 1000 coils or something.

Again, I'd suggest changing your project. Magnetic propulsion would be challenging enough, as would many other projects.

Cliff

 

[the go to guy]

i am useing the polls but its not working...
to make the hallbock array do i need to buy a bunch of square mabnets and put them in the order shown on the diagram?? how do i make the hallbock array
and could i use circular magnets to acheave it or do i need square or rectangle ones ??

 

[the go to guy]

i know u all want me to give up on this one and move to another one but i will need to do this project in order to beat out the other kids in my class (they have good projects)

 

[Cliff_J]

The Hallbock array is used to increase the magnetic field on the bottom, for a small light application like yours wouldn't necessarily need it.

Next trick, and its the neat one, is winding and orienting the coils. You need to speed the magnetic train along the coils to get it to levitate. Now we have the hat trick.

They said like 10 kph in the article - if your track is 2ft long your train needs to cross it in less than .25 of a second in order to levitate. You could make it circular and angled, or have the train bounce back and forth like a ping-pong ball, which would be fun because it would be a neck stretcher to keep up with it flying back and forth that fast. If your track was 9ft long, the train needs to cover that in a second, hope you see the challenge there in getting the train to that speed. For a small toy train at that speed, you could create small wings to provide enough lift and make your train 'levitate'.

If you had two months and lots of space to setup your display (in other words lots of track to get the 6MPH or whatever for levitation) and lots of funds to build a big track, this might be a different story. But now you're on two weeks time. Sorry dude.

Cliff

P.S. What are these good projects you're up against?

 

[On Radioactive Waves]

the go to guy:


If you're really serious about making this train for a science project, why not do something easier this year, and have the train be an early start on a project for next year?

 

[the go to guy]

im goin up against magnetic generators ,huver crafts , ex. (and then there is the classic volcano)

now cliff were u saying that it is possible or that i probably won't pull it off?? and if you are saying that i CAN do it than i have a couple Q.

1. so are you saying that i can just put some permenent magnets on the train? (and do the magnets have to be 4 long rectangular onesne for each "tred": or can i use plain old circular ones and just put them in a row like so :OOOOO

2. how would i make it go back and forth like a ping pong ball??

 

[the go to guy]

oh
i can't do it next year because we're not having one next year
thats why i want to go out with a bang

 

[Cliff_J]

Volcano - like baking soda and vinegar? Easy. Hovercraft, easy, pick a DC motor, small fan, battery, and bicycle innertube for a skirt. Magnetic levitation and propulsion, very very very difficult.

I'm offering information so you can make your own decision. I've tried to make just a simple magnetic bearing in the past. It was right after I learned of transistors, and I tried to use them to control 3 magents to suspend a steel ball bearing. Long story short, as soon as I'd let go the ball bearing would fly into a magnet.

1) Magnet shape doesn't matter, strength does.

2) That's super fast for a toy train. Hence the difficulty. The test track in the article was 65ft long.

What other ideas come to mind?

Cliff

 

[the go to guy]

i really didnt have any other ideas so...
i was thinkin that to get it goin i could just start it goin that fast manualy and then make it bounce back and forth until is slows down. that way i don't have to worry about the linear motor and propultion and that stuff.
would that work??

and i could make that trake as long as i need.. well.. prolly up to aboult 12 feet
and my permanent magnets are preaty strong (stong enough to hold up the little amount of the train)

and i gues the only other Q i have would be how to make it bounce back and forth

 

[Cliff_J]

Ok, time for some homework to experiment with your existing gear.

Hot glue 4 magnets to the bottom of the train spaced evenly apart. All the poles need to be pointing the same way.

Hot glue 4 magnets to a piece of wood, spaced the same as the magnets on the train. All poles pointing the same way, opposite of the train.

Can you hold the train over the magents and have the magnets repel each other enough to keep the train up? How far? Why might this not work?

Cliff

P.S. Careful with the hot glue if you haven't used it before, it is very hot and can burn you.

 

[the go to guy]

actually i tryed that already i don't know why it didnt work but it didnt

i am in a jam now
i need help almost all the projects you guys have said eather iv tried or the just bore me i like the inductrack idea but i need to know how to make it bounce back and forth

and i don't need to worry about propultion (because if i can throw a base ball at 73mph i can get the train moving fast enough just by using my ow power)

 

[Cliff_J]

Ok, if you want to continue with a levitated train, we need to determine what went wrong with the magnet experiment exactly before proceeding.

It might be the magnets are not strong enough. You could pitch it at 90MPH and have a hallbock array and still not get levitation if the magnets are weak. It'd be easier to add wings like I said before.

Most likely you ran into an issue where the train was unstable where it would tip/fall/slide very quickly like my bowling ball analogy above. Using 4 walls you could hold the train in place, 2 walls to make a tunnel that holds the train over a line of magnets.

It could be the magnets were not setup properly. Start with a single magnet. Find a side that will hold a paper clip and mark that one side N with a marker. Glue it to a table with the N up. Hold another magnet up to that one side marked N. If it sucks up to it then mark it S. If you cannot push them together because they repel, mark it N. With four magnets facing N up on the table, and four magents facing N down on the train, the train will levitate if you can hold the magnets right above each other. Maybe only a tiny tiny fraction of an inch. And you will need to use your hands to hold it there, but its an experiment. Then construct the walls to hold it there, hopefully just two over a line of magnets.

Further homework would be researching more of how magnets work so you can explain why. Like what happens to magnetic force when the magnets are 1/4" away from each other instead of 1/2" away? Your teacher should be able to assist you with setting up an experiment to measure force if you haven't figured it out already.

-----------------------------

If you're looking for other ideas, plenty abound. Find out what people did last year or other years, find something that interests you and pick a way to explore it and learn about it. Document your process and what you learned and at least the teacher should be impressed if you follow a good scientific method. Impressing the kids is another story!

I searched google, plenty of stuff came up, here's a couple:
http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/projectguide/
http://school.discovery.com/sciencefaircentral/scifairstudio/ideas.html

Cliff

 

[Cliff_J]

Couple more:
http://www.isd77.k12.mn.us/resources/cf/ideas.html
http://www.gdlewis.ednet.ns.ca/gartland/scifair.html#topics

Cliff

P.S. Note that success/failure is determined mostly by what you LEARN in your process, not just what you do. Well, and also leaving some time to create a nice board to display some of what you learned and assist you in presenting it.

 

[the go to guy]

my magnets are weird
they will repell but if u twist it the will attract

its like noth and south are an the same side and the whole magnet is split in quarters! it has 2 south poles and 2 north poles

if you look at it from the side the poles look like this

NS
SN
and looking at it frome the top it would look like this


S
N

so i don't think thees will work for anything

i think ill just buy some new, sronger magnets and do the inductrack to the best of my abillity and if i fail to make one i will explain why it didnt work and how it was soposed to work and make a poster board with the diagrams on it and the scientific method of it

is there anything else i could include

 

[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

 

[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