During this experiment, we explored Faraday’s Law which states that changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires would generate electricity. We were given a tube which had a magnet inside that was able to move back and forth through a coil of wires. The greater the magnetic flux, the greater the currents and voltage – the faster we shake the tube, the more voltage we will generate.
Using lab view, my partner and I preformed three trials where we shook the tube at different speeds. For each trial, we would shake the tube at a constant rate for 30 seconds for three trials. These three trials of constant shake speed would count as one larger trial. We tested three different shake speeds – fast, medium, and very slow. My partner shook the tube while counting how many shakes he made during the trial while I timed him and informed him of when to stop.
Below is a table of our data that we collected. The table includes the sum of the squares of the voltages we got through lab view. To calculate the sum of the squares we just calculated the sum of all the voltages we got during our trials. We calculated this through Excel.
| Sum of Squares of Voltage (Power) | Number of Shakes |
| 0.425070219 | 71 |
| 2.138 | 73 |
| 2.532 | 71 |
| 8.553 | 99 |
| 10.169 | 110 |
| 13.049 | 113 |
| 1.844 | 50 |
| 0.465343974 | 48 |
So, the first three trials were when we shook the tube at a medium speed (71, 73, 71 shakes) the next three trials were when we shook the tube at a fast speed (99,110,113 shakes), and the last two numbers on our table represent our third trial at a very slow rate (we got 50 for two trials, and then 48 shakes). Although our numbers turned out much smaller than what other students collected in their experiments, our graph shows the trend which was expected in our hypothesis.
In conclusion from our data and graph, we found that as we shook the tube faster, the amount of power generated (voltage) went up. The faster the magnet travels through the tube through the coiled wires, the more voltage it generates.
This lab was an interesting way to learn about power and voltage. We were able to generate power ourselves by shaking a tube. Once again, my partner Bryan and I cooperated well during this experiment. It was a little more difficult to get going on this experiment though due to technical difficulties and our equipment wasn’t working right off the bat. Once we figured everything out, we were able to perform the experiment smoothly and had a good time with it again.