Skip to main content

Kids Projects at Home

Simple Kids Crafts is a video blog dedicated to reviving the old art of handicrafts for people of all ages. How do oil spills affect aquatic plants? A Miniature Solar Panel Fire Water Balloon Make Clouds in a Bottle Secret Messages Make a Rocket Make a Hovercraft Make an Anemometer Make a Sundial Make a Radio Make an Electroscope Make a Stethoscope Make a Telescope Make a Periscope Make a Camera Bending a stream of water with a comb Lighting a bulb without electricity Simple Motor Cotton Ball Rocks? Salt-Absorbing Art and Science Color Changing Glue Art Baking Soda Clay Oil Sun Catcher Grow a Pineapple Plant! Bead Bowls Wow, what an Air-Gun Funny Diver ! Water boils without fire Ice with Boiling Water Water that boils instantly Water boils in a Paper Pot Soap-driven Boat Pulse Moves Pin Pretty Garden—without Plants Picture made by Fire Magic Pictures Dancing Doll Smoke Goes Down The Dancing Coupl The Umbrella Dance Magic Butterfly Colorful ...
1 comment

Magnetic circles


Aim:

To conduct a simple experiment to demonstrate how a current carrying conductor generates a magnetic field.

Materials required:

  • A one foot long coat hanger wire (With any insulation scraped off).
  • A wooden stand with a flat surface at around halfway height.
  • 5 or 6 small compasses.
  • A 6 volt battery.
  • Two electrical lead wires with alligator clips


Procedure:

  1. Make a hole in the centre of the flat surface of the stand and pass the coat hanger wire through it so that it is suspended vertically.
  2. Arrange the 6 compasses in a circle around the wire on the flat surface.
  3. Attach the lead wires to the battery terminals. Leave the other ends of the wires free for now.
  4. Observe the compasses now. You will see that all compasses point in the same direction, towards magnetic north.
  5. Now connect the battery terminals to the coat hanger wire using the lead wires. Observe the orientation of the compass needles now. Each compass will point in a direction tangential to a circle centred on the coat hanger wire.
  6. Rotate the support stand and observe again. The compasses will continue to point in tangential directions.
  7. Connect the battery to the coat hanger wire with opposite polarity by switching the lead wire clips and observe the compasses again. You will see that the compass needles now reverse the direction they are pointing in, but continue to point in a direction tangential to a circle centred on the wire.

Scientific explanation:

Usually a compass lines up with the earth’s magnetic field. The north pole of the compass needle, which is itself a magnet points towards the south pole of the earth’s magnetic field as opposite poles attract each other. Now, when a current passes through the wire, it generates a magnetic field which is much stronger than the earth’s magnetic field. Hence the compass needle is now affected by both the earth’s magnetic field and the current carrying wire’s magnetic field. Since the latter is much stronger, the compass needle gets aligned with the wire’s magnetic field. This magnetic field can be visualized as a set of concentric circles with the wire as the centre. When the direction of current in the wire is reversed, the compass needle also points in the opposite direction as the magnetic field is reversed.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fooling Your Brain with a Mirror

Aim: To prove that what we see is often affected by what we expect to see with the help of the mirror image experiment. Materials required: 1. Mirrors – 2 in number, square in shape, 12 inches (30 cm) a side, could be either made out of plastic or glass. 2. Epoxy glue and duct tapes. 3. Wooden dowels – 2 in number with diameter as 1 inch (2.5 cm) and 12 inches (30 cm) long. Procedure: 1.      Stick the mirrors together by pasting their backs. If you have a glass mirror then for safety, tape their edges using the duct tapes to seal the sharp edges. Take the two wooden dowels and paste them right in the centre of the mirrors vertically. 2.      Hold the dowels with each hand and as you look at one side of the mirror move the hand which is on the other side. What do you actually see? What happens? Your brain expects the image in the mirror to move as it is fooled to believe that the image it sees is actually your othe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Unleash the Power of the Pinwheel

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine if the orientation to the wind affects the amount of power generated by a wind turbine. Methods/Materials A wind turbine was constructed using an empty oatmeal canister weighted with heavy bolts to keep it grounded, a wooden skewer, a homemade rotor, two feet of thread, one end secured to the aft shaft and the other to five #1 size paper clips. Using a hair drier, wind was directed toward the rotor at the following angles; 0 deg., 45 deg., 90 deg., 135 deg., and 180 deg. The time to raise the load of paper clips to the base of the shaft was calculated in seconds, using a stopwatch, and the distance the paper clips were raised at each position was measured in inches, using a tape measure, but then converted into meters. After conducting three trials, times and distances were averaged to determine which orientaion to the wind source created the most power. Results After testing all five angles three times, I#ve found ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mathematics of Sympathetic Vibrations

Objectives/Goals  Which notes on a piano can induce sympathetic vibrations on an open string? Mathematical relationships between test note and open string frequencies will be used to predict which notes cause sympathetic vibrations. I predict the three test notes in my sample that are harmonics of the open string will resonate the longest. Methods/Materials  Materials used were: a piano, a stopwatch, a frequency chart, and a helper. I depressed a piano key, the damper lifted and the string was "open," or free to vibrate. I played all the notes in one octave higher than the open string. My helper timed the durations of the tone coming from the open string. I averaged and graphed the results.  Results  The thirteen test keys in each sample caused the open string to resonate. Seven test keys caused brief resonance; the vibration inside the sound box caused the open strings to produce a tone.  Three test keys produced tones of intermedi...
Post a Comment
Read more