The objective was to try and create a closed loop SMOT.
Device
Here are pictures of what I built. The ball is 1 .5 inch steel ball bearing.
The red material is plasticine (like play dough or putty). It holds the
magnets in place very well and is infinitely shapable. The magnets are
1 cm x 2 cm x 4 cm ceramic. Four of them are taped together to make
one side of each ramp. Two parallel wires line the track and the ball
touches the wires, not the plasticine. The use of plasticine may have
been a good idea for building a quick test but the wires would come
loose over time.
Front angle view of the first ramp
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Side view of the first ramp
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Top angle view of 5 of the 6 ramps
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Top view of 5 of the 6 ramps
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Conclusions
This one did not work out. The ball was able to roll only as far as
the fourth SMOT ramp but could not make it out the other side.
My first guess at the time was that the only excess energy came
from placing the ball in position at the start of the first ramp and that
each ramp it went up and down, it lost a little of of the initial
excess energy. It ran out altogether after the fourth ramp.
On thinking about it later, I realized that it would stop after the
fourth ramp no matter where it was started and that maybe there was
just a problem with the fourth ramp. Unfortunately I thought of that
too late and (how many times have we heard this :-)) I've since
dissassembled it to reuse the magnets.
Sorry but I didn't think to make a video at the time feeling it was
a failure.
Links
