My partner Blair and I with the magnet that we made, as well as the battery that we used and other supply.

This is the base of my motor.

These are the different coiled copper wire that I used and tried to get to spin.

These are all of the different materials that I used to build my motor.

Making a Motor

My physics third term project was to make a motor that would spin for at least 60 seconds.  This was probably the most challenging project so far.  It took many hours of hard work.  My partner Blair and I spent a lot of time trying to replicate different models that we saw on youtube.com.  However, nothing was working.  Finally my dad gave us the idea of using a stronger magnet.  We were not allowed to use a magnet in our project, but if we were able to make our own magnet that would be allowed.  We made a magnet out of a large metal stake that had copper wire coiled around it.  This was the answer to our problem.  As soon as we had a powerful magnet we were able to make our motor spin as long as we wanted it to.  This project was a great learning experience, complete with the feeling of accomplishment at the end as we watched our motor spin.