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.

ANNOUNCING BRAIN CANDY LIVE

Nihilism: Embracing the Void of Existence

View All

9 Japanese Philosophies to Become Self-Disciplined and Stop Procrastinating

Have you ever struggled with procrastination or finding the motivation to get things done, feeling like you’re not living up to your own expectations? I won’t lie. I struggle with procrastination a lot, and it’s a challenge, especially when I have importa…

There Are No Get Rich Quick Schemes

We skipped one tweet because I wanted to cover all of the tweets on the topic of the long term. The tweet that we skipped was, “There are no get-rich-quick schemes; that’s just someone else getting rich off you.” This goes back to the world being an effi…

How YOU Can Make Money with NO MONEY! | Ask Mr. Wonderful #7 Kevin O'Leary

Hi Mr. Wonderful. My main question is how do you make money with no money? This is Andrea. Andrea, do we need a quick musical interlude here? [Music] Yeah, that was good. Just, you know, takes the edge off. So how do you come up with a good business idea?…

2 step estimation example

We are told a teacher bought 12 sheets of stickers to use on the homework of her students. Each sheet had 48 stickers. At the end of the year, the teacher had 123 stickers remaining. Which is the best estimate for the number of stickers the teacher used? …

The Making of 'Genius' | National Geographic

Genius is the first scripted series on Matt Gio. The first season of Genius is the story of Albert Einstein, which we’re telling over the course of 10 episodes. We all know, uh, of his genius, his gifts, but Albert Einstein’s private life is far more comp…

How Much Is A Bird in The Hand Worth?

Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. And as they say, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” What it means is that it’s better to have a certain advantage than to have nothing, except the possibility of a greater one. But two birds in the bush? Who calcula…

I Made A Solenoid Engine!

More Articles