Inspiration from The Magnet-arium

Hi I’m Anna!

When we first met with Dr. Moldwin, Joe and I were inspired by the demonstration toys that line the walls of his office. As he started to explain how they worked in more detail, we became fixated on one particular device that was made of a thousand tiny compasses, all with tiny arrows that created a representation of a field when a magnet was introduced to them.

Our ideas went something like this.

Joe and I: this is beautiful. Let’s make it bigger!

Anna: Let’s make them reflective and cast auroras onto the ceiling by shooting colored lights at the compasses. Let’s suspend them from panels and let passers by manipulate the fields with magnetic gloves. Disco science!

Joe: but let’s make it represent a real field. Let’s arrange them in a circle to convey a sense of a third dimension to visualize it more accurately. Let’s put the Earth in the middle and put a magnet inside the Earth.

Anna: We'll need a really strong magnet.

Dr. Moldwin said: you can make a very strong magnet, but be careful.

Update: We made the magnet... but alas, we were not careful enough. On the bright side I have the coolest wire-shaped burn! Just call me magneto.

Update: accidentally branded myself a few times. Word to the wise: don’t touch the wire.