I Made A Solenoid Engine!

less than 1m read

·Nov 10, 2024

I built a solenoid engine. Unlike most motors out there that hide how they work, this beauty bears all. A solenoid is a kind of electromagnet. When electricity flows through this coil, a magnetic field pulls the magnet-topped piston inside up. But when the piston reaches the top, a cam on the axle it’s turning cuts off the flow of electricity, and the flywheel's momentum pulls the piston back down.

But once down, the cam disengages, electrical flow resumes, and the piston goes up again. You can see how it turns electrical energy into rotational energy. To make this happen, my team and I got to design a bunch of custom cross axle compatible parts that I had been wanting for a long time: special cams, pistons, arms, wires, a heavy brass flywheel, and of course, the solenoids themselves.

We even made elliptical gears, Nautilus gears, and a Geneva mechanism. If you’d like to build one yourself and add these parts to your arsenal—too bad, so sad, psych! You can buy one! ABS plastic, ooh, and look at those colors! The first 500 people to use code "I love you Michael" will get 10% off.

Hands off My Phone! (An ELA audio drama)

Electron configurations of ions | Atomic structure and properties | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy

View All

Exponential functions differentiation | Advanced derivatives | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

Let’s say that Y is equal to 7⁄2 the x squared minus X power. What is the derivative of Y, derivative of Y with respect to X? And like always, pause this video and see if you can figure it out. Well, based on how this has been color-coded ahead of time, …

Fleeting Grace of the Habitable Zone | Cosmos: Possible Worlds

We’ve got the biggest dreams of putting our eyes on other worlds, traveling to them, making them our home. But how do we get there? The stars are so far apart. We would need sailing ships that could sustain human crews over the longest haul of all time. T…

Death From Space — Gamma-Ray Bursts Explained

Imagine if you could gather the energy from every star within a hundred million light years. From thousands of galaxies, each with billions of stars. Imagine, you could take this kind of power, and use it to fire the biggest super-weapon in the universe. …

10 Proven Ways To Master Your Focus

Your focus is your most valuable asset, right alongside your private data. That’s why billions of dollars are spent every year to make you lose track of time. The whole goal of every social platform is to grab your attention and keep it. Well, in this pro…

Radius comparison from velocity and angular velocity: Worked example | AP Physics 1 | Khan Academy

[Instructor] We are told a red disc spins with angular velocity omega, and a point on the edge moves at velocity V. So they’re giving us angular velocity, and also you could view this as linear velocity, and they are both vectors, that’s why they are bold…

The Big Misconception About Electricity

This video was sponsored by Caséta by Lutron. Imagine you have a giant circuit consisting of a battery, a switch, a light bulb, and two wires, which are each 300,000 kilometers long. That is the distance light travels in one second. So, they would reach o…

I Made A Solenoid Engine!

More Articles