Derek Dela Cruz

Mr. Williams
STEM - 3/4
March 18, 2018

Electromagnetic Lab Write-Up

The Task:
My team had to answer a question relating to the question “How do electrical currents
influence magnetic fields?” To narrowed down this question by focusing on the wire of an
electromagnet and asking the question:
“How does the gauge of a wire affect the magnetic force of an electromagnet?”

This question would be what we based our experiment on. We would focus on the wire gauge
as the changing variable.

Background:
This project is based all around electromagnets. An electromagnet is a magnet created
by an electrical current. This is usually done by wrapping a wire around a metal nail and running
a current through the wire. This is done by connecting the two ends of the wire to a battery.

Source: http://science4fun.info/how-to-make-simple-electromagnet/

The current creates a magnetic field because due to the movement of the electrons. The field
starts from the positive and flows down to the negative. Some variables in an electromagnet
include the length of the metal, the voltage of the battery, the gauge (diameter) of the wire,
measured in AWG, and the number of wraps. These are the kind of variables that the
experiments are based off of.

Hypothesis:
If a wire is wrapped around a nail to create an electromagnet, then the wires with a lower
AWG number will have a stronger magnetic force than the wires with higher AWG numbers.
In order to test this we are conducting an experiment involving the AWG of the wires. The way
we’ll measure the force strength is by seeing how many paper clips the tip of the nail can
magnetically pick up.

Materials:
● 1.5 V battery
● 3in steel nail
● Office Depot #1 paper clips
● Insulated 32, 17, and 14 AWG wire measured to 4.5ft (137cm)

Procedure:
1. Choose the 32 AWG wire and cut it to 4.5ft
2. Wrap the wire 50 times around the nail starting from the top. 25 wraps are actually on
the nail and the other 25 are on the wire.
3. Connect the battery to the loose ends of the wire.
4. Test the force by holding the tip of the nail near an open packet of paper clips. Paper
clips should be lifted by the force. Lifted means to be held for 3 seconds or more.
5. Move the paper clips away from the box and count the number of paper clips lifted.
6. Record the data and repeat this trial 2 more times.
7. Remove the wire and repeat this process for the other wires.
Note: Don’t hold the wire to the battery for too long. It’ll make the components hot and could
damage them.

Variables:
Tested Variable: Wire AWG
Controlled Variables: Battery voltage, nail size and material, wire length

Independent Variable: Wire AWG

Table:
Number of Paper Clips Lifted:
AWG of Wire Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Average

32 AWG 1 2 3 2

17 AWG 4 4 12 6.66

14 AWG 10 14 17 13.6
This table shows the lower AWG number performing significantly better than the higher AWG
numbers.

Mass of Paper Clips Lifted (kg):

17 AWG 0.0044kg 0.0044kg 0.0132kg 0.0073kg

14 AWG 0.011kg 0.0154kg 0.0187kg 0.0146kg

Graphs:
Bar graphs showing the number of paper clips lifted per trial

Analysis:
Our data shows that wires with lower AWG numbers work significantly better than wires
with higher AWG numbers. A lower AWG number means that the gauge is higher. A higher
gauge means a longer diameter. A larger diameter means that there’s more room for the current
to flow. More room to flow means that the current is unrestricted, allowing it to flow as fast as it
can. The improved mobility of the current allows for a stronger magnetic field and thus, more
force from the tip of the nail. This is presented by how the amount of paper clips increases as
the gauge increases. More mass requires more force because, according to Newton’s 2nd Law
(F=ma), if mass increases, then force increases. Our hypothesis is correct because it stated that
the lower AWG numbers would have a stronger force than the higher AWG numbers. While
performing the experiment, one possible error is defining what “lifted” means. For instance, if a
paper clip is lifted simply because it’s connected to another clip that was lifted, does that other
clip count? If we were able to rerun the experiment, we would narrow down this definition and
recount. The discovery made by this experiment now asks the question of “How big is too big?”
How large can the wire get before it starts losing its strength? For this, we would simply need
more wire types and continue counting the paper clips.

CLEAR Paragraph:
In an electromagnet, a wire with lower AWG numbers generates significantly more
magnetic force than wires with higher AWG numbers. In class, my group was assigned to doing
an experiment with an electromagnet. An electromagnet is a magnetic field created by an
electric current. This is done by wrapping a wire around a nail and running a current through it.
One way to affect this force is by changing the gauge, or diameter, of the wire, measured in
AWG. To figure out how this force is affected by changing the AWG, we would conduct an
experiment by seeing how many paper clips are magnetically picked up by the different wires.
Our data table shows that the 32 AWG wire averaged around 2 paper clips, the 17 AWG wire
averaged around 7 paper clips, and the 14 AWG wire averaged around 14 paper clips. The 32
AWG has the smallest diameter, while the 14 AWG has the largest diameter. The larger
diameter has more room for the current to flow. If the current can flow more freely and is less
affected by resistance, then the magnetic force will be stronger. This means that more paper
clips can be lifted. The mass of the paper clips also proves that the nail has more force. On
average, the 32 AWG lifted 0.0022kg, the 17 AWG lifted 0.0073kg, and the 14 AWG lifted
0.0146kg. The 14 AWG lifted a larger mass than the other AWGs. This would require more force
because, according to Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion, F=ma. a stays the same and m increases,
meaning that F increases. More paper clips means that the magnetic force was stronger than
the forces with less paper clips because the force is larger with a larger mass. Because of the
larger diameter, the wires with lower AWG numbers and more mass lifted generate significantly
more force than the wires with higher AWG numbers.

Conclusion:
This experiment proved that wires with lower AWG numbers work better than wires with
higher AWG numbers. We got pieces of evidence that strongly supports this statement and we
were able to explain why it works. I think that this experiment helped me understand
electromagnets, Ohm’s Law, voltage, magnetic fields, and current. This experiment was fun and
I hope that we do similar experiments like this in the future.