Simple Electric motor STEM project

When we think of the motor you will immediately get the visuals of a car motor or a bike engine, but we actually encounter other small motors in our daily life. Motors have changed the way we live. Even now you can find at least 3 to 5 electric motors around you or in your room. For example hairdryer, laptop cooling motor, or the motor spinning your hard drive, and small toy cars, electric fan, AC compressor motor, and many more. Electric motors have confirmed themselves that it is one of the most excellent discoveries of all time. 

This tutorial will help you to understand how they work by developing a simple electric motor. This science project is for kids who are interested in electrical components. Also, this project helps kids to understand the working of motors easily. 

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How does the motor rotate

Simply put electric motors convert electrical energy to mechanical work. To understand this concept easily take an ordinary wire and make it into a big loop and place it between two permanent magnets (one side north pole and the other side south pole). If you connect the two ends of the wire with a battery the wire will jump just like magic. Read further to understand the science behind it. 

When current flows through a wire it creates a magnetic field around it and when the coil is placed in a magnetic field this temporary magnetic field interacts with the permanent magnet and you know the disliking and liking nature of magnets (same poles repel each other and different poles attract each other)

You can understand this more briefly with the help of fleming’s left-hand rule. Let’s start building the project. Below are the components required to build the simple electric motor:

• Copper wire
• D-battery
• Sewing needle (large-eyed)
• Electrical tape
• Modeling clay
• Small circular magnet
• Working tools

Procedure

1. Take 4 to 5 pens together and tie them with rubber bands. Now wind the coil around the pen (30 times). Remove the rubber bands after winding, to slide the coil easily. 

2. Now wrap the loose end of the coil tightly to hold it together. 

3. Take a knife and remove the insulations at the free end of the coil. So that each end of the coil will be positioned on the large of the needle. 

Note: Keep the end of the coil straight as possible to make the motor work smoothly.

4. Now fix the needle and coil with the D-battery. For that, keep the battery on cardboard or flat surface and stick it with the modeling clay to prevent rolling. 

5. Position the needles upright next to the battery terminals so that the electric current can pass through the coil. 

6. Secure the needles using insulation tape. Now the coil will be hanging above the battery.

7. Place the small round magnet on top of the battery exactly under the coil. 

8. The setup is now ready. Give a little push to your coil in one direction if it doesn’t rotate try another direction. 

Once started moving the coil will continue rotating until the battery is dead. This is a cool STEM project for kids they can do this project for thier science fair or school exhibition. 

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• Magnet
• Copper wire

• STEM

Simple Electric motor STEM project