Motor Design Blog

In the creation of our motors, we sculpted each piece a certain way to do a certain job. This blog will explain how each part worked as a whole.
The battery provided power to the entire motor, and was also the motor's base. It created the current so that the motor could operate. The arms, created out of two paperclips, held the coil up, as well as giving the current an area to flow through. If the arms were made of a non-conducting material, such as plastic or glass, the coil would not have received current, and therefore would not have worked. The rubber band held the arms to the battery. The coil was a copper wire, wrapped around my fingers several times, then scraped at the ends on one face of the wire. This spun, which would have powered a fan or wheels if it were attached to one. The magnet provided the magnetic field necessary to create a spin in the coil.
The motor turns how it does due to several factors. Without any one of these, the motor would not have spun. The magnetic field was up, and the current was straight ahead. The right-hand rule says that if these are true, then the force is to the right. The wire was only scraped on one side. This caused the wire to only receive current when it was positioned at certain positions. Because current-carrying objects fluctuate when exposed to magnets, and the coil was only carrying current at specific times and positions, the coil was only spun when exposed to the current, despite being in constant contact with the magnet's magnetic field.
This motor, if scaled up significantly, could be used to power car wheels, fans, or anything else that needs to spin. As it is, it would not provide enough power to make up for its own weight. With a more powerful and/or efficient energy source, however, the motor could power any spinning thing.