Objective
The objective was to try and create a closed loop SMOT, a Simple Magnetic Overunity Toy.
Construction of the SMOT loop
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.
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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.
