For an annual outreach event at my institution I’m putting together a few easy experiments around electromagnetism. The program for high school students is aimed at getting them interested in STEM.

Searching the internet I found a beautifully simple example of an homopolar motor. All that is needed is:

• A AA battery
• A few disk shaped Neodymium magnets, slighty larger diameter than the battery
• Bare copper wire (I used 14 AWG)

The battery sits on the stacked magnets. The wire is bent into any (symmetrical) form, with a pivot point in top center to be placed on the ‘+’ pole of the battery and a circular shape around magnets.

This is what I came up with: