Vanessa Diaz

March 16, 2018

6* 7* STEM

Lab Write Up: Battery Voltage Experiment

Objective/ purpose: Using the question, How do electrical currents influence magnetic field?, we decided to
test and see how different voltages affect the number of paperclips picked up.

Background/ scope:
An electromagnet is a metal core that is wrapped around with wire to make an electrical current run and
turn it into a magnet. How it works is that the two ends of the coil/ wire attach to a battery or something else
that would provide a positive and negative charge and the the core would act as a magnet and the faster the
current is, the stronger it is. Positive charges go/ are attracted to negative charges.

Hypothesis: I estimate that as the voltage increases, the number of paperclips picked up should increase as
well.

(Materials and materials being tested combined have all materials; look at both)
Materials:
- 32 gauge insulated copper wire
- 3 inch galvanized nail
- Office depot paper clips
- Sandpaper
- Painters tape
- Scissors
- Meter stick/ ruler

Materials being tested:

- Rayovac Ultra Pro battery (1.5 V)
- 2 Alkaline batteries attached by painters tape end to end (positive to negative connecting) to make the
1.5 V be 3 V (by connecting the 1.5 V each added together to make 3 V to be able to test the number of
paperclips a 3 V battery can pick up) (3 V)
- Eveready Industrial General Purpose battery (6 V)

Independent Variable: Batteries’ Voltage

Dependent Variable: measuring how many paperclips are picked up with different voltages
Controlled Variables: length of wire, amount of times wire is wrapped around nail, and surface

Procedure:
 1. Obtain all materials: 32 gauge insulated copper wire, 1.5 Volt battery (Alkaline Battery), 3 Volt battery (2
Alkaline Battery with painters tape to keep them together as said above), Eveready Industrial General
Purpose Battery (6 Volts), sandpaper, scissors, painters tape (to tape 2 1.5 V Alkaline batteries
together), 10 office depot paper clips (could get more), 3 inch galvanized nail, and metric ruler
2. Use metric ruler to measure 4.5 feet of the 32 gauge insulated copper wire
3. Cut 32 gauge insulated copper wire 4.5 feet long
4. Wrap wire that has been cut around the 3 inch galvanized nail 100 times leaving 2 inches of wire on
one end of the wrap and 1 inch of wire at the other end of the wrap (2 inches if possible, prefered on
both ends)
5. The 3 inch galvanized nail with the insulated copper wire 4.5 feet wrapped around it 100 times is the
electromagnet going to be referred to later although at the moment no current is running through it
because not connected to battery (definition of electromagnet listed above)
6. Sandpaper one end of the wire 1 inch long and all around
7. Sandpaper ¾ of an inch on the other end of the wire only half of the wire (not all the way around, just
one side of the end of the wire
8. Select battery that will be used
9. Have the pile of 10 depot office paper clips ready
10. Attach both sides of excess wire from electromagnet to positive and negative sides of selected battery
11. Move electromagnet (nail with wire wrapped around 100 times) down to pile of paperclips
12. Record how many paperclips were picked up by electromagnet when no more could be picked up
13. Do a few more trials and record
14. Repeat steps 8 through 14

Safety
- Careful not to lick, chew, eat or swallow any materials
- Do not chew or put to your mouth the wire
- Tip: Don’t connect the wire with no electromagnet (just wire itself) to the battery, you will use all the
energy and kill the battery (won’t work anymore)

Bar graph showing # of trials and the results for each battery in the trial

This is the data represented/ shown in a bar graph. We got those results and the blue is actually 3 V, not 3.6 V.
Plus we got that the voltage doesn’t really affect it, it is random. We got the median and average and the
results for each ranged. Surprisingly with the ranging results, we got around the same median as average. 1.5
V seemed to work a bit better, but the results ranged for each trial. Another thing is we should have recorded
which trials we used both ends of the electromagnet, it could be a variable. We used both ends of
electromagnets for some trials for each battery. Maybe that is a variable and effected results.
Data Table
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 Trial 5 Trial 6 Trial 7 Trial 8 Trial 9 Trial Medi- Aver
10 an -age

1.5 V 6 5 9 8 7 6 4 4 6 8 6 6.3
≈6

3V 5 6 7 6 5 6 4 4 4 4 5 5
≈5

6V 5 4 6 3 5 6 4 7 5 8 5 5.3
≈5

Here is a table of all the data we gathered. We did a total of 10 trials and each got ranging results. The voltage
did not really seem to affect it. Also we rounded the average to the nearest whole number because there can’t
be ½ or a part of a paperclip. We used whole paper clips, not parts. So we rounded the average to the nearest
whole number and got it to be equal to the median. I am surprised that we had many ranging results and
ended up getting the mean and average to be around/ equal to each other. We sometimes used both sides of
electromagnet for some trials of 1.5 V, but we also used both sides for some of the other batteries’ results.
Maybe a variable is using both sides of electromagnet to get paperclips. We did not record which trials we
used both sides of electromagnet. We could improve lab by only keeping/ using one side of electromagnet to
get paperclips. If we use both then we should record that.

Median and Average (Mean)

Here the data shows all the points for each trial and each battery and the median represented as dashed lines.
We got the median and mean to be around the same. The orange is the 1.5 V battery results, the blue is the
3V battery results, and the black is the 6V battery result battery trials. With all the points ranging we got the
median and mean to be around the same. We got some of the averages to be into whole numbers and
decimals, but since there can’t be half a paperclip we rounded the averages which are the same as the mean.
For 1.5 V: Median is 6 paper clips and average is 6.3 paperclips. 6.3 rounded is 6, it can’t be a decimal
because there are whole paperclips (not part of a paperclip). So it continues, it is explained above.
Bar graph showing results for each battery

Here, this graph shows the results in a better way. It has the data in order from 1.5 V, next is 3 V, and last is 6
V battery results. It has data a bit more clearer and each battery has 10 trials, it is just another representation
of the data. It shows that the 1.5 V battery got higher results, and that the 6 V battery got slightly higher results
than the 3 V battery.

Bar graph without discarding outliers

This shows the graph without outliers. Each color is labeled above. Except the blue is not 3.6 V, it is 3 V. Even
with the outliers taken out, 1.5 V seems to get more paper clips (higher result).

Conclusion: The battery voltage does not really affect the number of paperclips a 3 inch galvanized nail with
insulated copper wire wrapped around it 100 times. We got ranging results for each battery on each trial. There
was not a huge difference and no pattern. For the 1.5 Volt battery we got ranging results from 4 to 9 (more
than half more difference) paperclips picked up, but along with that we sometimes used both sides of
electromagnet which might have affected the results. The results varied but ended up getting around the same
median and average. The 1.5 Volt number average of paperclips picked up is 6.3≈6 (rounded to whole number
because there is only whole number paperclips) and the median is 6 paperclips. The results for the 3 V battery
varied as well, the 3 V battery got results ranging from 4 to 7, it did not range as much as the 1.5 V battery
ranged. The median for the 3 V battery was 5 and the average was 5 too. Along with that for the 6 V battery it
ranged from 4 to 8 (twice as much). The average was 5.3 ≈5 (whole number paper clips) and the median was
5. It has no apparent pattern. The 6 V battery gets slightly better results (picks up more paper clips) than the 3
V battery and the 1.5 V battery picked up more paper clips than the rest. It doesn’t seem to have a pattern. If
we were to redo it, maybe we would record when we used both sides of electromagnet and when because it
could be a possible variable. The battery voltage seems to get the same for almost all, they all seem to get
around the same. The battery voltage does not seem to affect the number of paper clips picked up.