RUNNING HEADER: MAGNETIC ANIMAL REPELLENT LAB NOTEBOOK 1

Magnetic Animal Repellent Lab Notebook X

Sidney Boakye, Michelle Miller, and Joaquin Valda
Senior Physics Mentorship
4/30/18
Dr. Psaker Lab
Governor’s School @ Innovation Park

Objectives:

Decoding of data

Creation of the final presentation and poster board

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Materials and Methods

After conducting field testing of the latest version of the device, we witnessed that our

constant magnetic field did not bother birds as much as we hoped. We determined that this may

be due to the constant magnetic field, in other words the birds might be getting desensitized to

the disturbance in the magnetic field. Therefore, the final adjustment we have made to our

project is to change our steady magnetic field into an alternating magnetic field. Utilizing an

alternating field our device will have a greater effect on the birds’ behavior as they approach the

bird feeder. We first tried using a standard as table multi-vibrator circuit, which oscillates

between an on and off states continually producing square waves. We wired a simple alternating

circuit that consists of four 1k Ohm resistors, two 330 uF capacitors, and two small transistors.

This circuit is able to switch an LED light on and off very quickly when powered on. However,

we were having trouble integrating it into our device. So, after a few classes of readjustment and

modification we found that reducing the circuit to half of its components is perfect for our

implementation. This will have our electromagnet switch on and off very quickly.
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Data and Results

When we replaced the LED light with our electromagnet it added too much resistance to
the circuit. To combat this issue we tried to make a smaller version of the circuit in which the
resistors will be replaced by our electromagnet so we don’t add extra resistance.

Fig 1. This is the top view of our alternating circuit

Fig 2. Corner View of alternating circuit

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Future Goals

We are approaching the end of Senior Mentorship at the Governor’s School @

Innovation Park. It has been a wondrous journey to work together as a team. We have gone

through many designs, testing through continuous trial and error. In this progress report we have

but a few goals. We will be done with all of our data analysis by Tuesday in two weeks’ time.

We will also be finishing our abstract so that we can turn it in early and fully focus on our

display for the Research Symposium. Finally, we will have made all update to our project

website by this date. All of the media we have from the school year and other supporting

documents will be uploaded to the website.

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References

Gabbatiss, Josh., 7 Apr. 2018, “Substance That Gives Birds Mysterious Power to See

Earth's Magnetic Field Discovered by Scientists.” The Independent, Independent Digital

News and Media, Retrieved April 12, 2018, from

www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bird-power-earths-magnetic-field-scientists-

discovery-magnetoreception-lund-university-oldenburg-a8293891.html.

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