Science Fishing Rod With Electromagnets!

Science - Fishing rod with Electromagnets! 

In science class, we recently started a new unit called electricity. After learning a little more about how a lightbulb works and why it works, we moved on to learning more about electromagnets. As our homework, we learned about what it electromagnet and electromagnets are technically created when you wrap a wire around a nail. After learning that we need to build a fishing rod, we started planning out ideas and how our fishing rod would be like. Here’s all of our drafts down below. 

The first draft - Down belong is a picture of my first plan that both me and my partner, Elina, drafted. This picture technically explains that the long wire is attached to the battery holder (with batteries) and  also wrapped around the nail down below. Then again with the other side of the wire, it is also attached to the battery holder on the other side. The only thing that was good about this fishing rod was that it has a complete circuit, which was really important to have because that’s how the nail can pick up the paper clips. But there was also negative things which was it was too weak (it can only pick up 2 small paper clips at once) and also, there no switch. 

The second draft - For our second draft, we decided to add a switch and also make sure it has a complete circuit. After listing a bunch of ideas of what we can use as a switch, we finally figured that we would use thumb tacks and a paper clip. The paper clip can be the one that controls if the circuit is going to be complete (when the nail can pick up paper clips) or if the circuit is going to be incomplete (when the nail can’t pick up paper clips.) So here’s our draft: 

Some of the good things is that it has a complete circuit like before, and also, it finally has a switch. We also realized that the switch makes the fishing rod slightly stronger. From only lifting up 2 paper clips to lifting up a big purple clipper. Though some things we could have changed was maybe making another switch because our switch wasn’t as fast as some of the others. 

During our fishing derby competition, we decided to stick with our second design. In total, we got 305 points!