Picking up metal debris: the electromagnet

Picking up metal debris: the electromagnet

I liked Ava’s idea of using some sort of magnet to capture metal debris from the ocean water. With the objective of putting some animation into the model, I decided to push this idea a bit further and therefore include a small electromagnet. To do so, I repurposed a small actuator that I had in my junk pile (it probably came from a recycled printer). I extracted the coil and used two nails that I shaped and cut in such a way to reproduce the shape shown in Ava’s drawing. By turning the coil current ON and OFF, I am able to turn the magnetic field ON and OFF as shown in the attached video.