- [Announcer] What time is it?
- [Children] It's Science Time!
♪ Science, science, science time ♪ ♪ Lets mix stuff and just unwind ♪ (gun popping) ♪ One, two, three, four, here we go ♪ ♪ Learn so much your brain explodes ♪ (water splashing) ♪ Beat so big, you will do math ♪ ♪ Turning back some real cool stuff ♪ ♪ Scream for more, can't get enough ♪ ♪ It's, it's time to shine ♪ It's fun, you best believe it.
♪ ♪ Store and learn new things!
- I'm Mister C and this super smart group is my science crew.
Lyla is our notebook navigator, Alfred is our experiment expert, Rylee is our dynamite demonstrator, and London is our research wrangler.
Working with my team is the best.
It makes learning so much fun.
Actually, you should join us.
Today we're learning about magnets.
What time is it?
- [Children] It's science time!
- Welcome back to another episode of DIY Science Time.
I'm Mister C and I'm so glad you're here to be part of our science crew.
(whipping) And today we're gonna be talking about magnetic fields and magnets.
My crew and I have been working really hard to get ready for the day, and we wanna talk about how this magnet is going to power an actual car.
Well, a magnetic race car that is.
So for us to get started, we need a few materials.
Let's check those out.
- To build a magnet racer, you want to collect the following materials: circular magnets, a paper towel roll, plastic wheels or plastic bottle caps, tape, straws, skewer sticks.
And most importantly, your science notebook!
- A science notebook is a tool that every scientist should have.
And it gives us a place to record all of our learning.
Taking good notes and being organized allows us to be better scientists.
A science notebook allows us to go back and review all the data and information we've gathered during our experiments.
Plus, it allows us to share results with other scientists who might be interested in learning more about what we've discovered.
Whenever you see the notebook pop up on the screen like this, it's a reminder that this is a good place for us to jot down new information.
You can see I've already added a title and a list of materials for today's activity.
Our crew is still going to have lots of information to collect and organize as we go through the experiment.
So keep your notebook handy.
Most importantly, the more you use the science notebook, the better you'll get at taking notes and recording data.
If you don't have a science notebook yet, download a copy of Mister C's science notebook from the website.
- As you can see, I have tons of materials that I can use to build my magnetic racer.
In fact, I have a bin in my garage, where I store all of this stuff, all the extra bottle caps, skewers, straws.
That way, when I want to invent something like a race car, I know where to go to start digging to build it.
Now your materials might look a little different than mine and that's okay.
This is an engineering design challenge, and I'm challenging you to build a race car with the things that you have at your house.
So if it doesn't look just like mine, that's not a problem.
And most importantly, we need to talk about these magnets.
I have four different magnets sitting right here in front of me.
I have a horseshoe magnet, a circle magnet, a bar magnet and also a neodymium magnet, which is super strong.
Let's see how their strengths compare.
(gentle electronic music) Horseshoe magnet, not too bad.
Circle magnet, that picks up a few more.
A bar magnet, not bad.
And our neodymium magnet.
(laughs) Oh my gosh!
As you can see the neodymium is super strong.
I think that's probably gonna be more than I need for my magnetic racer, But it's good to know it's that powerful.
In fact, I think I'm going to use this circle magnet to be the engine to my car.
Only because it's stronger than the other two, the horseshoe and the bar magnet, but it's not crazy strong like that one.
I think this is gonna work really well.
So now that we know what magnet we're gonna use, let's talk about how these magnets are actually going to move the car down the road.
(upbeat music) Every magnet has two poles, a North pole and a South pole.
When you take two magnets and bring together two opposite poles, those magnets are going to be attracted to one another.
However, when you take two like poles and bring them together, those magnets are going to repel one another.
And you may not be able to see this force, but we can certainly feel the magnetic fields pushing against one another.
That idea about repelling is what's actually going to move our car across the table.
And so I have the stack of magnets here, and we're just gonna look at it.
They're all stuck together, but if I take this one and I flip it over, (magnet rolls) it jumps all over the place, right?
Likes, repel, opposites attract.
So I'm gonna take these circle magnets that have this hole in the center, and I'm gonna place one here, place one there, and I'm alternating them so that their magnetic fields are pushing against one other.
Look at that.
And then-- (magnet thuds) I can actually cause them to bounce (magnets thud) and shoot them all around.
That's because likes repel and opposites attract.
So if I wanna pick them up really quickly, I put them all back together and have my stack.
So we're gonna take this and we're gonna apply it to our race car.
London, what else can you tell us about our topic today?
- After doing more research on magnets, I learned that Earth is actually a giant magnet.
The Earth's core generates a magnetic field, which creates magnetic poles.
Scientific tools like compasses are attracted to the magnet poles of the earth and help with navigation.
Compasses have been around for nearly 2000 years.
- Thanks, London.
Learning about all this magnetism sure does build an appetite.
This cereal, it says that it has lots of iron in it.
I think we should test it out to see what happens.
(slow electronic music) Oh my God, that's so cool.
The cereal is attracted to my super strong magnet.
There's iron in there.
(growls) (laughs) Now that our belly and brain are both full, let's get back to the race car build.
I drew a little sketch of my car and how I think it's gonna look, so that I have something to build from.
This is what it looks like.
(soft music) So now that we actually see what we want it to look like in our diagram, let's try to replicate that with the actual materials that we have.
(soft music) Oh!
Hm, all right, hold on.
So we have a problem.
Let's see if at first if we can get the magnet to move our car.
So it pushes, right?
So we can see it's repelling, but it's not rolling, because the bottom of my car is actually touching the ground, so it's not gonna roll.
So I'm gonna try, I think.
And this is the best part about doing an engineering design challenge like this.
It's gonna be something that you have to try and you might run into an issue.
So what we're gonna do is, we're gonna try to flatten our car a little bit.
(paper rattling) Like a pancake.
(laughs) Oh, I think this is gonna work.
Let's see what happens, put our wheels back on.
(soft music) Oh, I think it works, I think it works.
All right, we have a little bit of drag left on the bottom.
So I think we need to squish it more.
(soft music) (knocking) All right, let's see what happens.
We gotta get these wheels on here good.
But, now we have a car that actually rolls.
So let's get these axles setup.
We have another challenge we have to figure out now.
We're gonna have to figure out-- ooh, it's not rolling.
Put that here, now we're gonna have to tape on the outsides.
We're have to figure out how to get this magnet attached.
Hm.
Oh man!
I should have put the holes for the axle really low on this tube.
But because I didn't, I'm having this issue.
There are a couple of things we could do differently.
Just thinking out loud, I could have had bigger wheels, I could have lowered the point where the axle is attached.
I could actually probably put the straw on top of this, so it works.
Lots of different things, but we're gonna see if we can salvage this and connect it with the magnet.
So, how do we do that?
Hm.
(energetic music) So, I think I got it.
I'm gonna take this tube and I'm gonna actually cut it.
(upbeat electronic music) I'm gonna cut a piece of the tube off, and I'm going to, (upbeat electronic music) I'm gluing it out so it sits just like this.
(upbeat electronic music) I'm gonna put a little piece of tape over the body right here, pull it down.
(upbeat electronic music) And now, the moment of truth.
Yeah, it doesn't look anything like it was supposed to.
(laughs) All right, here we go.
(rolls) It worked.
Let's try that again.
Let's move all this out of the way.
All right, let's see if this works.
(rolls) (laughs) Oh, wait a minute!
I got an idea.
What if I push it and then I try to pull it?
Wah, that scared me.
All right, so that's, I think pushing it is easier because it's hard to get, (faint thud) yeah, that's really hard.
It's attracted to it, so when the likes are facing each other, it pushes.
When the magnets are opposites, they attract.
So we know they're opposites and I can put it like that.
I think we should take this outside and give it a try.
What do you think?
(energetic electronic music) (laughs) That is so awesome.
It's working just like I planned, the magnets are pushing the car, and the car is actually moving pretty easily, considering the road is so bumpy and there's cracks in it.
You might have noticed, I have this stick here and this is like my walking stick for my racer.
This is what I've been using to push my car across the street.
And now that I'm making some modifications to how I'm actually moving the car, I think we should actually have like a baseline test.
Let's create a track so we can measure how fast this car goes, so that if we make other improvements, we'll have something to compare it to.
(energetic electronic music) Go!
(wheels rolling) Yeah!
Yeah!
(laughs) That was awesome.
This car traveled 10 feet with one try.
It's turning a little bit to the left of it.
Look I mean, my wheels are just like flopping all around, so I have some re-engineering to do.
But my initial testing, success.
It's working.
I wanna jot this down in my notebook.
All the things that I'm gonna think about doing so that next time we build, I know exactly what I wanna fix.
You should build one of these too.
(airplane whirls) We've been talking about and exploring with different magnets today.
We've also noticed that they have different strengths, but one thing holds true: they're attracted to things like iron, cobalt and nickel.
What's interesting is I have some iron filings right here and we're gonna use those iron filings to see the invisible magnetic fields.
Let's get started.
First one, we're gonna do a bar magnet.
(gentle music) You can actually see the magnetic field in this bar magnet.
Oh, let's check out what the horseshoe magnets gonna do.
(gentle music) Lets try our circle magnet and see if it does anything.
As you can see, each of the magnets have their own magnetic fields.
(upbeat electronic music) - Mister C has been busy working with those circle magnets.
So, we better check our science notebook to make sure we've got everything recorded.
I've included some research and information we've gathered about magnets and their magnetic fields.
Remember, we can always add more as we learn more.
That's what makes a science notebook so attractive.
(giggles) Get it?
And look, here's Mister C's initial sketch of his car.
It looks, well, it looks kind of similar to the one he actually built.
And based on his initial testing, we can say that he was able to make his car travel using only the power of magnets.
Could you make your car go faster?
Maybe using bigger magnets could create a bigger magnetic field.
Try changing one variable at a time to see what improves your car's results.
Keep taking notes as you change things, so that you are able to go back and see what works best.
- Are you ready to cash in on some fun science?
Did you know that a dollar bill is printed with ink that has metal in it?
That means that this dollar bill may actually be attracted to a super strong magnet.
Pretty cool, right?
(upbeat electronic music) (dollar rattling) - Ooh la la.
(upbeat electronic music) Check out this tower I just built.
I have this styrofoam cup hanging here from the string.
We know that gravity wants to pull objects down, because that's what it does.
Just like this paper clip, if I let it go, it falls to the table.
But I have another paper clip tethered to the table with a string.
And I'm gonna put that, up towards this styrofoam cup.
And it hangs there.
It's suspended in air.
It's defying gravity!
Look at that.
That's pretty cool.
My question is why?
And can you think about why it might be doing what it's doing?
If you thought it could be a magnet, guess what, you are 100% correct!
This is a neodymium magnet.
Its a super strong rare earth magnet.
And what I have here, is this magnet sitting in this styrofoam cup, producing a magnetic field.
Now we can't see magnetic fields, but we know they're all around these magnets.
So when I put the paperclip up into that magnetic field, it's attracted to the magnet.
We saw that my finger could actually go through it but I wonder could we get other materials to go through it as well?
Let's give it a try.
Aluminum foil.
(soft music) Doesn't disrupt the magnetic field.
Wooden ruler.
So the wood doesn't do anything either.
Got an orange highlighter.
Yeah, highlighter.
See what that does.
(slow music) Doesn't disrupt the magnetic field.
I've got my handy-dandy science notebook.
Well, that did something different.
The paper clip actually fell when I put the spiral through the magnetic field.
The spiral, it's attracted to the magnetic field, so it temporarily disrupts the attraction the paperclip had.
But here's the thing: what if I connect this again like that, and then I try to put this back up here.
The magnetic field is still there and it's going through the notebook just like it was before.
But now that the spiral is already connected, it doesn't disrupt the magnetic field and allows that paperclip to hang there.
- Gather some materials in your home that are attracted to magnets and build your very own sculpture.
(upbeat music) Wow, there's nothing more beautiful than science!
- Playing with pendulums can be fun and it's usually predictable.
However, you can create a pendulum that has some chaotic tendencies.
If you use a magnet for your bob and place other magnets around, you can see the impact the magnetic field has on the pendulum.
(energetic electronic music) This is why it's chaotic.
It's no longer a predictable pattern.
- Our crew has been in the swing of things.
All of these magnetic activities have really come together.
Remember, you can hop online and download a printable copy of the science notebook we use here on DIY Science Time.
- What an amazing, magnificent day of learning today.
Aren't magnets just awesome?
Likes repel, opposites attract, magnetic fields look different depending on the magnets.
Neodymium magnets are super ultra strong.
Remember, everything you did today to build your magnetic racer, you wanna jot that down into your notebook.
And before we leave, I wanna show you one other thing that I built.
Well, I didn't build it, but I brought it along.
This here is a container and it has ferrofluid in it.
That means this liquid is attracted to magnets.
Check this out.
Ferrofluid is attracted to the magnetic field of my magnet.
When I let go, it falls.
This is definitely something I wanna jot down into my notebook so that I can do research in the future.
This is so interesting.
Keep learning, keep having fun, keep exploring and remember, science is wherever you are.
See you in the next episode.
Bye!
♪ It's science time ♪ It's science time - That is awesome.
That is awesome.
♪ It's science time ♪ It's science time ♪ It's science time ♪ It's so much fun ♪ Learning fun for everyone ♪ everyone - (laughs) Oh my gosh!
- Oh, that was awesome.
Did you see how fast that was going?
♪ It's science time ♪ Everyday