Magnetism+(Electromagnet)


 * Mason Felix **

**Electromagnet Lab**

**//__Purpose:__//** The purpose of this lab is to create an electromagnet using a nail, some insulated copper wire, and a battery. To find which battery is most effective, it is important to use different types of batteries, or batteries with different voltages. In this experiment, the batteries that are needed are a 9V, AA, AAA, C, and D. When you grab these batteries, you will notice that the 9V clearly has a voltage of 9 volts, and all the other batteries have a voltage of 1.5 volts. Since these batteries have the same voltage, if you have time, you can test all of them, but if you don’t have enough time, you can clearly make the assumption that no matter which battery you use, they will all have the same effect. Using these batteries will help you determine which battery will produce the best electromagnet.

**//__Procedure:__//**

To start this experiment, you will need to gather the following materials; an iron nail (around 3-4 inches long), an insulated copper wire (at least 1-2 feet long), a couple of batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, and 9V), a labquest 2 machine, and the magnetic field sensor (to plug into the labquest 2 to make the measurements).



Once this step is complete, you will need to make sure that the insulation on the ends of the copper wire are trimmed a little too where some of the copper wire is uncovered. When you have completed this step, you will need to get the labquest 2 ready to record your results. In order to do this, you will need to turn it on, plug the magnetic field sensor in, and activate it. To activate the sensor, you will need to press sensor on the screen, press sensor set up, press ch 1, and scroll down to where it says magnetic field sensor and press that to activate it. Now that the sensor is hooked up to the labquest 2, you are finally ready to proceed with the actual experiment. In order for the experiment to work, you will need to wrap the copper wire around the nail a couple times. Once this is complete, you are ready to start the experiment. Now connect one end of the wire to one side of the battery and get the magnetic field sensor and labquest ready. Pressing the play button on the labquest 2, connect the other end of the wire to the other terminal of the battery and position the magnetic field sensor toward the nail. The labquest 2 will record the data from the sensor being drawn toward the nail and away from it. Since you have now completed the experiment using a 9V battery, you go back to the beginning and repeat these same steps using a different battery.

**//__Analysis:__//**

The analysis of this experiment was pretty simple. In order to create magnetism with an electromagnet, you need a good conductor that will allow the electricity from the wire to flow right through it. In this case the electromagnet was created using a wire coiled around an iron nail, which was then attached to the battery. The conductor in this case was the iron nail, which was why this experiment could be conducted. Once the electric current was carried through the nail, it then produced a magnetic field. Unfortunately physics cannot be perfect, so once the magnetic field is created you have to move the magnetic field sensor around to actually find where the field exists and where the field does not exist. In this case the magnetic field produced was very strange. It only appeared at the sharp tip of the nail for this experiment and everywhere else on the nail was zero. The end of the nail had a charge of 16.116 mT.



**//__Results:__//** As previously stated in the analysis, once the wire was connected to the battery the tip of the nail almost immediately gave off a signal for the magnetic field sensor. What about the rest of the nail though? The magnetic field around the rest of the nail (as detected by the magnetic field sensor, or rather not detected by it) stayed at zero constantly. These results came from using the 9V battery, when you use any of the other batteries (AA, AAA, C, D) there is no magnetic field given off anywhere around the nail. There are many errors that could have occurred in testing these other batteries. Since the voltage on each of these types of batteries was only 1.5 volts, it could have something to do with the nail maybe being too long, not wrapping enough coils around the nail, or maybe the insulation around the actual copper wire being too thick. Point is, there is a lot of room for error in this experiment as we saw, and that we can account for. After finally doing the last tests of this experiment on each of the last 4 batteries, we can conclude with saying that given these materials and conditions, we are able to state that the best battery to use is the 9V battery due to its high voltage.