Generator Lab
Equipment:
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One generator (magnet that moves back and forth inside a coil of wire)
One voltage probe
One NXT adaptor
NXT
Labview VI generator_lab.vi
Excel sheet
Introduction
Faraday’s Law states that changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires generate electricity
(currents and voltage). The greater is the change in magnetic flux, the greater are the currents
and voltages. In this lab you will be shaking a tube which has a magnet that will travel back and
forth through a coil of wires. You will show that the faster you shake the tube, the greater will
be the generated voltage.
Procedure
Your instructor will review the generator_lab.vi with you so that you will be able to understand
how to use it to measure the voltage output of the generator.
Your task is to correlate the number of shakes of the generator, in a thirty second time interval,
with the voltages (or more precisely the sum of the square of the voltages) that the generator
generates.
After you understand how the VI works, and how you can use Excel to analyze your data, you
will perform ~5 experiments where you
1. Shake the tube at a particular rate.
2. Count the number of shakes in the data collecting interval (set to 30 seconds)
3. Calculate in Excel the sum of the squares of the voltages (SSV’s) (the voltage is logged
after each second)
4. Repeat 1-3 three more times at three for three different rates of shakes.
5. Plot the SSQV’s as a function of # of shakes and fit the result to a linear curve
6. Explain your results in your blog.
Your grade will be based on how creative, thorough, and clear your blog write-up is.