My PBL project is the homo polar motor. A homo polar motor is a direct current electric motor with two magnetic poles, the conductors of which always cut unidirectional lines of magnetic flux by rotating a conductor around a fixed axis that is parallel to a magnetic field.
I chose this project because it seemed like an interesting project where i would get to build my project.
My ELA Project Opition Choice is 1 the journal.
Journal #1: As for developing my project idea i haven't really done much of that. I picked my project on whim as project options were running low and i didn't wish to get stuck with a bad project. However my physics teacher did help me come up with ways to expand my project and my ideas for it. I at first thought that i was going to just make a small motor, i didn't really have any sort of experiment planned out. But then he gave me ideas on how to change it up and give me more ways to see my project play out.
Journal #2: When i picked this project i had no idea what it even was so naturally research was a thing i needed to do. I googled homo polar motor and found out that it wasn't going to be all the complicated. The list of materials consisted of a copper wire, AA battery, rare earth magnets and a few other tools to bend the copper wire. For my research i gathered that the motor itself consists of two rare earth magnets stacked on top of each other, a double AA battery on top of those two magnets, and copper wire bent into a shape that fits around the battery but doesn't touch it. I figured to change up the experiment i would change the sizes of the batteries, and how many magnets/ how big of magnets i put under the chosen battery.
Journal #3: For my project all of the helped i had with it was from my physics teacher. He has overall been pretty helpful in the process of this project. The only thing we seem to be having some trouble with is communication about my materials for this project, and when we will be ordering/getting them. Because all the materials have not been fully collected yet i cannot do the next part of my project for the physics component of PBL. This in itself is immensely frustrating as i just want to finish my project requirements for this quarter. But in the bright side that seems to be the only major problem that has occurred so far in this project.
Journal #4: I think i could use a couple visuals to better represent my project. I feel like maybe bar graphs comparing how fast the motor went to the size of the battery or how many magnets were used would be useful to organize gathered data. Of course to do this i will have to gather the data first, considering i haven't done that yet. but regardless i think this would be an excellent way to visualize how the differences in magnets or batteries will affect the result of my project. I would also like to use a scatter plot or something with dots for comparing the different speeds.
Journal #5: Since i just don't want to do the exact same thing as the experiment suggests i have a couple of ways to change my motor in one way or another in order to see if there is any noticeable effect. A few variables that i could change per experiment would be magnet size, amount of magnets, and size of battery. Having such a varying range of experiments will show how the motor could operate under different conditions. These data from these results can be compiled and used to decide and build a more powerful or faster motor than the ones before. Or the more likely scenario, i collect a few different motors and a lot of data on how to not make a unsuccessful motor (what is defined as successful has yet to be determined).
Journal #6: I really wish i could just get my materials for my project already. I can't do anything yet without them. I cant even do task 10 or 11 which is a pretty big part of my physics grade. I even stayed after school the other day so i could work on my project but my physics teacher had told me that the school had not order my materials and that we were unprepared! I ended up staying after school for nothing at it was incredibly frustrating. I'm gonna end up finishing my 10th and 11th tasks REALLY close to the end of this quarter’s deadline, so that's more stress on my plate now because i would really like a good grade in physics.
Journal #7: My english teacher said that since i haven't started my project yet due to lack of supplies i can do these journals on other things that aren't the project. Well, still the project of course just not the EXPERIMENT part of the project. So i guess this journal is me still being upset that our school is well unprepared for these projects. Its still really irritating and kind of sad as well. To be honest my experiment actually seems kinda cool and i would like to do it but all these deadlines and my grades hanging in the balance make it..less enjoyable to say the least. I kinda wish it was just ONE grade that was due instead of Multiple but whatever its not like i can do anything about it. Although im glad the instructions are pretty simple, and this is basically the same as STEM last year.
Journal #8: I was thinking on how this project could actually assist my career goals in the future but honestly i don't see it happening. However i do think it could definitely impact someone else's, maybe in the engineering industry, or transportation. If changed and experimented on enough this could become a new way to motorize things. Maybe make them smaller and more portable, with a stronger magnetic field and faster speeds, it could be used for a lot of things in the future that we use less technologically advanced things for it now. But of course someone has to invent that, so maybe this motor idea could impact people in other career goals, just not mine. (i want to go into costume design, i don't know where this could function in that but i'm open to ideas)
Journal #9: