Comments on: Science Project Idea: Electro-Magnetic Propulsion

By: Highway27

Highway27 — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:16:21 +0000

One thing that might be a potential improvement is to find a way to do both push and pull propulsion. That probably couldn’t just use a metal ball, tho.

By: John Moore

John Moore — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:20:03 +0000

Elegant solution and nice project.

When I was in high school I built an electromagnetic nail gun that could shoot a finishing nail 30 feet and stick it in a door. I just took two coils, put them around a glass tube, and used relays (this was a long time ago) and a ham radio “bug” key to pulse them. Twiddling around until everything was right yielded a pretty nice result.

By: Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:03:10 +0000

You took the notion of a ‘rail’ gun literally, didn’t you!

By: xpatUSA

xpatUSA — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:56:46 +0000

Good job. Your fears about inductive effects can be allayed by a little tech theory. When the circuit to the coil is broken, the previously established magnetic field collapses through the coil very quickly on a time constant of L/R and R is very high (open circuit). Therefore the onward progress of the ball under it’s own momentum is be visibly impeded.

regards,

T.C.

By: tribal elder

tribal elder — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:46:14 +0000

Science fairs are part of some massive federal research project where the US gov’t identifies the children with the smartest parents. I suggest you run NOW.

By: Bruce Yelen

Bruce Yelen — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:33:25 +0000

Nice project. FYI – If while at Disney World, you had gone on the tomorrowland people mover, you’d have been riding in cars using the system you described above!

Reagards,

Bruce