Electric Motor Made out of Buckyballs


(Video Link)


YouTube user graybum devises many simple and ingenious uses for Buckyballs, such as this amazing electric motor. It's just Buckyballs, a wire and a battery. Redditor gloon explains how it works:

When you touch the wire to the side of the magnets, you complete an electric circuit. Current flows out of the battery, through the magnet to the wire, and through the wire to the other end of the battery. The magnetic field from the magnet is oriented through its flat faces, so it is parallel to the magnet's axis of symmetry. Electric current flows through the magnet. If you took physics at some point, it's possible that you'll remember the effect that a magnetic field has on moving electric charges: they experience a force that is perpendicular to both their direction of movement and the magnetic field. Since the field is along the symmetry axis of the magnet and the charges are moving radially outward from that axis, the force (Lorentz force) is in the tangential direction, and so the magnet begins to spin.


-via reddit

This is cool. I could be mistaken, but I think you need insulated wire and then you need to scrape off HALF of the insulation on the end of one wire which interrupts the circuit every half rotation. That is described in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JuUDpMAAUg

I believe if you didn't interrupt the circuit then it would just oscillate back and forth instead of rotating. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.

ps - lol ObviousTroll
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Another note to anybody wanting to use this as a teaching lesson. The video shows an arrangement using two stacks of 8x4x4 Buckyballs plus two on the battery for a total of 258 balls. This requires two sets of 216 Buckyballs at $35 each, or $70 plus shipping. The same effect can be demonstrated with just one magnet costing less than one quarter of a dollar (US). The lesson: don't assume the first solution is the best. Do some research. Look for "simplest electric motor".
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If I might interrupt this thread of insults and spam to make two points:

Buckyballs are Buckminsterfullerene, a spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms, named in honor of Buckminster Fuller because they somewhat resemble geodesic domes. In fact they more closely resemble soccer (ie, football) balls since they have a mix of pentagonal and hexagonal faces where the dome is entirely triangular faces. They are also a brand of small, magnetic ball bearings, which have nothing to do with B Fuller.

Isn't the wire spinning, not the magnet?
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John- High five, back at ya' !
I teach gifted and talented kids at a Michigan elementary school. This is an awesome project the kids would really get excited about. Thanks for posting it.
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The first guy who posted should do more research, before the name calling. Go to ThinkGeek..com Look up these BUCKYBALLS. Its name is an homage to Buckminster Fuller. I guess that makes you a gadget illiterate.
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