Tic Mag Toe v1.0

Hey guys!

As some of you know over the summer I became super interested in Magnetic Levitation. I started reading/learning about it and got super excited. I bought a maglev kit from Guy Marsden and it was super cool to see it levitate a pen.

Currently I am working on my own design using a switching mode converter and some analog feedback. Fun fact: it turns out that my Master's Thesis is going to be on modeling and control of Magnetic Bearings!

The previous examples I have mentioned are examples of active magnetic levitation, where a controller regulates the position of an object via feedback. Another kind of MagLev that exists is passive maglev which requires no active feedback. Turns out you can build a stable maglev system with no active control using Diamagnetic materials.

Diamagnetism is the property some materials have to repel magnetic fields. It is normally not a very strong effect but it is enough to make sheets of Pyrolytic Graphite levitate over strong neodymium magnets. My graduate advisor and I have been trying to think of uses of diamagnetism however given the forces involved are so low that we have not found any "real world" uses! I started to try and think of non-industrial non-real world uses and I thought it would be awesome to build a chess or checkers board with pieces made of pyrolytic graphite that levitate over the board. However given that the rare earth magnets are so expensive I decided to go with making a TicTacToe board first. I call this new creation Tic Mag Toe (im very proud of this name jajajaj...). I built a prototype this weekend:

tic mag toe v1.0

Getting the magnet in the checkerboard configuration was a little tricky cause they are crazy strong. We also had the world's first tic-mag-toe match:

I won it and became the undefeated world champion of Tic-Mag-Toe! However 10 minutes later Harry beat me twice... thus losing my glorious title to Canada.

My next step is to encase the magnet board into a nice laser cut frame and figure out a way to make nicer playing pieces. Then when I get enough money I'll go for the checkers board and maybe the chess board! For those of you wondering I got the supplies from http://www.kjmagnetics.com/ the best source for strong magnets I could find online!

Re-Induction of Blog Motion!

Hey guys!
  I have recently (yesterday) decided to restart this blog!

 After being inspired by my awesome roomie Vicky Rodriguez I have decided to revamp my blog and make it a maker blog!

 I'll be posting about stuff I have made/taken apart for classes, for fun, or just random ideas that I have! Please feel free to submit any ideas or comments and I'll definitely take into account your feedback!

For this re-induction post I have decided to talk about a simple Induction Motor me and my roommates made at 2am in September 2011 because we were bored.

Here is a video of the motor running!



 I have recently been really interested in induction motors, ever since I found out about them I cant stop thinking of possibilites to use them (of course, them being such an "old" technology most of their uses have been figured out).

 A induction motor works on the principle of electromagnetic induction (surprise, surprise!), AC is pumped into the stator coils which induces a current in the rotor (a lid in my motor) and this induced current tries to catch up to the changing magnetic field in the stators. Thus we get motion without no mechanical connection whatsoever!

 The motor is classified as a split phase motor, this is because I used one voltage source (a 9V RMS 60Hz sinusoid) and then hooked up one stator coil in series with 220uF a capacitor to create a phase shift which gives the motor self starting capabilities.

 Credits to Nikola Tesla, the real life Tony Stark who invented the induction motor (as well as a myriad of other devices!)

 Thanks for reading guys and please stay tuned to the blog! I'll to try update the website very regularly and document what I do!