We used the first iteration of SMAKS to test if our idea of making our own electromagnets to move a projectile in a tube as a desktop kinetic sculpture was feasible.
We began by researching electromagnets to determine the specifications of what we would make and found that calculations to determine the attractive force of the electromagnet was more difficult than we would be able to work with, so we started with a base design and tried building our own electromagnets. We were unable to make anything that could hold up a ball bearing, our intended projectile, so we switched to solenoids, or electromagnets without a ferromagnetic core, which would allow us to use a magnet as our projectile.
Instead of using MOSFETs, as we did for the final iteration, the first iteration used relays on a 4-channel relay board to trigger the solenoids. Similarly to the final iteration, the relay board was connected to a benchtop power supply providing 24V DC power to the system, with an Arduino UNO toggling the relays.
For this iteration, we made 2 solenoids, each with 1600 turns of 32AWG magnet wire, and placed a solenoid at each end of a bubble tea straw. We wired both solenoids to attract a cylindrical magnet, which we used as our projectile. We did not build an enclosure for this iteration, so we just held the solenoids in place on the bubble tea straw while the Arduino, relay board, and breadboard used for wiring sat on the table.
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