[PhysicsGirl] posts videos that would be good to use in a classroom or homeschool environment. She recently showed a 200KV capacitor made from a cake pan, a bowl, and some other common items (see video, below).
One of the most interesting things about the project was how they charged the capacitor. A PVC pipe and some common hardware made a wand that they’d charge by rubbing a foam sleeve up and down against the dome formed by a metal bowl. We might have used a cat, but there’s probably some law against that.
To discharge, they used the end of the wand and were able to get a 10 cm spark. Based on the dielectric constant for air, they estimated that equated to a 200KV charge. They also discharged it through someone’s finger, which didn’t seem like a great idea.
We’ve talked about [PhysicsGirl’s] videos before. Granted, a lot of this won’t help the experienced hacker, but if you work with kids, they are a great way to make physics interesting and approachable. We wish she’d spent more time on the actual construction (you’ll need to slow it down to see all the details), though. If you really want a capacitor for your high voltage mad science, you might find these more practical. We’ve seen many homemade capacitors for high voltage.
