Building a Motor (Blog 8)

Looking at those real-life engines of automobiles and technological devices and machines amazes me. One thing that runs them is the motor. Today we created this very motor - albeit a very amateur version of it. However it was still quite an experience.
The tools and materials we used for our endeavour:

• piece of wood
• wine bottle cork
• skewer
• Lego pieces (in replacement of paperclips)
• wires
• pop can
• nails
• tape, hammer, sandpaper, thumbtacks

Before the insertion of the cork.

The first thing we did was measure the distances between the four nails to make sure they were in the right position. After we hammered the nails into their positions and placed the makeshift paperclips (Lego pieces) in its proper positions. Getting the skewer to go through the cork proved to be a difficult task. We came up with the conclusion of hammering a nail inside the middle of the cork to make the hole more easily accessible. After some necessary force, we finally got the skewer in through the cork. It was pretty straightforward after this step. 

Before the insertion of the brushes.

We put the brushes (pieces out of a V8 can) into its positions and with a little bit of adjustments we were able to complete the project. The only thing left to do was test our "motor" to see if it worked. We went up to the front to get our motor tested.

As you can see from the video, our motor was successful - we were the fifth group to complete the task. Our final product looked like this:

In retrospect, it was a rather fun activity - it was both fun and educational at the same time. Those kinds of activities seldom come, so it will probably be one of the more memorable in-class school projects this year.