Many of you may have seen these fun little toys in museums or possibly even in school. Instructibles user [brazilero2008] takes us through the process of constructing one on our own.
Most of this toy are constructed from fairly household materials like foil, paper, straws etc. The fun part comes when you find the power supply. [brazilero2008] is using an air ionizer that he found at a rummage sale, though any high voltage DC source should work. He shares some tips on how to save time and effort creating the balls on the end by telling us how he did it the difficult way.
We admit this isn’t the most attention grabbing project, but we think it would be a fun educational weekend project.
Years ago (back when large CRT TV’s were popular – remember those?) I built a static motor based on Franklin’s bells design. I used the iron radiator in the living room for the ground sink, and a large sheet of tin-foil stretched across the front of our TV for the ‘power’ source. Worked really well. The ‘motor’ (a styrofoam cup with 2 sheets of tin foil covering slightly less than 1/2 the cup each) would spin up when the TV was turned on.
Nice job !
Having seen a video of one of these things has anyone ever thought of using this as the basis of a clock? Totally unnessary I know but could be a fun weekend project.