Electromagnets By, Dylan Blanchard, Brandon Hanaoka, and Ezra Thunemann

Question: How does number of coils affect an electromagnet. (12-volt battery)

Rationale: Our information could help make bullet trains faster by using stronger electromagnets because
the number of coils could save power and wire making it cost less money and making it more efficient and
safer because they have more money.

What we know from our research:

An electromagnet is a magnet that gets its magnetic force from the current or flow of electricity that runs
through a piece of magnetic material. The magnetic force is not permanent and can be turned on and off by
adding a switch to the circuit. The strength of the magnet can be changed with the number coils wrapped
around the wire, or it can be changed by the strength of the current the electricity running through the wire.

Sites we used for research:

YouTube and Gopher

Hypothesis:

The rings will make the electromagnet stronger until past about 250 wire wraps. The reason for
that is after to many rings the electrical charge will be insignificant because, after about 400 inches
of wire the electrical charge will dissipate.
Materials:

1. Big pole
2. Wires
3. 6-volt battery

Steps of our experiment:

1. Order 2 6-volt battery, iron rod, and wire on Carolina supply company.com
2. Wait for everything to arrive
3. Wrap wire around iron rod make it as neat as possible by raping it tight.
4. Connect the 2 6-volt battery with the wire to the metal rod wrapped in wire with the springs on the
batteries
5. Make sure your battery is plus to minus.
6. Put washers or anything made of metal to test if the electro magnet works.

Preliminary Tests:

We built an electro magnet with two 1.5-volt batteries to ensure our construction with electro magnets would
be eligible to work.
Our Results: we found out 50 coils with 12-volt battery can hold 9 washers and are test showed that 225
wraps with a 12-volt battery can’t hold anything.

Day 1: Day2: Day3:

We wrap the iron rod We add 125 more coils of wire. We

with 100 coils of wire. connect
both 6-
volt
batterie
s to the
circuit.

Names of experts we contacted:

Alan Giambattista

giambattista@cornell.edu

Conclusion

Looking at our results, our original hypothesis was wrong. Our hypothesis was that wraps will make the
electromagnet stronger until past about 250 wire wraps. One way we know that the hypothesis is wrong is
that our experiment didn’t lift any metal washers. We think this happened because the number of coils was
not enough for all the metal we had to coil around, and we didn’t have enough electricity. Another interesting
that that happened was that when we rubbed the wire against the tip of the battery it made sparks. I think
this was because there was a lot of electricity but not enough. In conclusion, it turns out that our giant magnet
didn’t work but our preliminary tests worked. If I were to do this again, two things I would change would be
we would use more wire and use stronger batteries. Something we did well was we found a good metal rod
and we wrap the metal rod neatly so that won't be a problem for us if we do another test.