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Playing Around with Electricity

My hairdryer broke and so we decided to take it apart to see if we can determine how hairdryers work.

Inside, we found the switch that slides to open and close the circuit.  We also found the motor.  Ethan decided that he wanted to try to make the motor go using batteries and wires. It worked!  Cool! He also discovered that if put the wires one way the motor will make the fan will blow out, but if you switch the wires around, the motor would turn the fan the other direction and suck air in.

This then led to getting the whole electricity kit out and playing around with its fan part.

We then found this colorful piece in the kit and taped it to the fan so we could see the optical illusion of full color bands.  You can also spin the paper with an electric drill like we did last year.
 
 
 
This led to the kids wondering what other colorful designs spun would look like.  So they created their own.  Interestingly, they all came out basically the same.
 
 
 
 
 
The next day, Emily decided to try to make a light bulb light up all by herself and she got it.  Yeah!
 
 
She also decided to try different things as conductors.
 
 
Ethan decided to try to make a radio and was able to pick up some Spanish news station.
 
 
Meanwhile, Emily got sidetracked and make a mouse out of her "possible-conductor potato", tape and electrical wire.
 
 
To see more on electricity,  click here.
 
To see more on illusions, click here.
 

Electricity Experiments

Circuits

"Chirping Chick" with small electrodes on bottom

completing the circuit by holding hands makes the chick chirp

seeing if water is a conductor of electricity

simple circuit

open circuit

closed circuit

tin foil circuit

simple circuit with buzzer

flashlight

potato as a conductor

water as a conductor

playing the game Operation and figuring out how it works electronic circuit-wise

Inspecting High Voltage Wires

Sometimes there is just no substitute for a real human being -- like when you need to crawl on hands and knees across high voltage power transmission lines to inspect them.  Scary! Click here to see the video.

The Sound of Power Lines

 

High Voltage Arc

 

Brainiacs:  Electrical Fence

 

Other Great Resources

Shake Pole

831 fluorescent tubes powered by the electromagnetic field surrounding overhead power lines. Photo- Peter Dibdin


Richard Box, artist-in-residence at Bristol University’s physics department, got the idea for the installation after a chance conversation with a friend. ‘He was telling me he used to play with a fluorescent tube under the pylons by his house,’ says Box. ‘He said it lit up like a light sabre.’
Box decided to see if he could fill a field with tubes lit by powerlines. After a few weeks hunting for a site, he found a field, slipped the local farmer £200 and planted 3,600 square metres with tubes collected from hospitals.

A fluorescent tube glows when an electrical voltage is set up across it. The electric field set up inside the tube excites atoms of mercury gas, making them emit ultraviolet light. This invisible light strikes the phosphor coating on the glass tube, making it glow. Because powerlines are typically 400,000 volts, and Earth is at an electrical potential voltage of zero volts, pylons create electric fields between the cables they carry and the ground.
Box denies that he aimed to draw attention to the potential dangers of powerlines, ‘For me, it was just the amazement of taking something that’s invisible and making it visible,’ he says. ‘When it worked, I thought: ‘This is amazing.’’

" I wanted to describe what happened within the field," Mr Box said. "There is always a power loss along any overhead power line, and the fluorescent tubes- all 1,301 of them- make the power loss visible. The result has surpassed all my expectations."
Professor Henshaw praised the artwork. "It is very hard to explain to the public what these fields are- that's the beauty of Richard's work," he said.
" To have an artist make something about quite specific physics in an artistic way is inspiring to us"
The amount of light emitted by the tubes varies according to the weather, and the presence of someone walking among them can plunge those tubes near them into temporary darkness.
The Bristol physicists will visit Field for a private view next week.

 

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