RUNNING HEADER: MAGNETIC ANIMAL REPELLENT LAB NOTEBOOK 1

Magnetic Animal Repellent Lab Notebook IV

Sidney Boakye, Michelle Miller, and Joaquin Valda
Senior Physics Mentorship
1/25/18
Dr. Psaker Lab
Governor’s School @ Innovation Park

Objectives:

To make a finalized product

Creation of an electromagnet with a sizeable magnetic field
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Materials and Methods

We have finalized our method of magnetic field generation: the simple electromagnet.

Though it may not be the strongest option, our research has determined it is fully capable of

delivering our desired result. Creating a magnetic field which can alter the magnetoreception of

animals which encounters it. This alteration does not have to be large, and we know our

electromagnet can accomplish this task.

In the spirit of the new year we have been ordering new materials which are crucial parts

in our final product design. Such parts include a potentiometer, so we can control the strength of

the magnetic field. A switch to control when the device is active and disabled. We also ordered a

D battery and purchased a casing for it. This size battery will allow our device to function

without major heating concerns. Then, we used Inventor to design a 3D printed box to hold our

materials and protect the wiring from the environment. We took all the measurements for the

items we ordered from the Amazon, the site we used to buy our materials, and we created a plan

for the device’s housing. It was designed as small as possible to not disturb birds from coming

near it, so we can properly test if the electromagnet is working.

Figure 1. This is our prototype for our device’s box.

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Data and Results

At this point we have no new data. We have gotten the ball rolling on our final device.

Therefore, we will hopefully be able to test the device in the foreseeable future. So far, we have

decided on our final circuit, all we need to do now is receive our ordered parts and put

everything together.
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Future Goals

Within the next two weeks, we plan to be towards the end of our construction phase.

Since we settled on going with the electromagnet, we have decided what our circuit will consist

of: a D battery, a on and off switch, our first electromagnet, and a potentiometer. With this we

plan to make a change to the surrounding magnetic field to affect the birds. We will test the

potentiometer with our electromagnet to see how we can change the magnitude of the magnetic

field. Then we will fit our device and the wiring in the 3D box and use the camera to record a

bird feeder so we can test our electromagnet.

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References

Loss, S. R., Will, T., & Marra, P. P. (2014). Refining Estimates of Bird Collision and
Electrocution Mortality at Power Lines in the United States. Retrieved October 24, 2017,
from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4081594/

Staff Feb. 7, 2005 From the print edition Print Share Subscribe Donate Now. (2005, February
07). High Country News. Retrieved October 24, 2017, from
http://www.hcn.org/issues/291/15268

Patent US5884426 - Magnetic device for repelling birds. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2017,
from https://www.google.com/patents/US5884426ht