Christmas Circuit Spinner

Get ready to bring a little Christmas magic to life with electricity!

With just a battery, magnets, and copper wire, you’ll build a structure that balances, conducts electricity, and spins on its own. Then, with a simple paper cut-out, you’ll transform your tiny motor into a festive Christmas decoration that twirls like it’s powered by holiday cheer.

Make sure an adult is actively supervising during this activity — small magnets are exciting, but they can also be a choking hazard.

Before we get started, let’s make some guesses about what might happen. Scientists like to make predictions, or hypotheses, before they do experiments. It helps them figure out what to expect and why things happen the way they do.

Have a go at making your best guess using the questions below:

• Which way do you think your copper creation will spin — clockwise or anticlockwise?
• What do you think makes it move?
• What role might the magnets play in making it spin?

Tīmata! Let’s get started!

• AA battery
• Small, circular magnets (strong ones like neodymium work best)
• Copper wire (about 30cm)
• Wire cutter
• Lightweight paper (like printer paper or, even better, tissue paper!)
• Cellotape
• Scissors

1. Place the magnets on the flat end of the battery (the negative end).
2. Cut a 30 cm length of copper wire. Using the shape below as a guide, carefully bend your wire to match.
3. On a piece of lightweight paper, draw and cut out a small Christmas decoration — like a snowflake, or a Christmas tree. This will sit at the top of your spinner.
4. This is the fiddly bit! Rest the top point of your wire structure on the positive end of the battery. Then gently adjust the bottom of the wire so it lightly touches the sides of the magnets. It might take a few tries — keep adjusting the wire until it can stand and move freely.
5. Once your wire can spin freely, tape your Christmas decoration to the top of your wire structure.
6. If everything is balanced and touching in the right places, your copper creation should start to spin on its own, powered by electromagnetism!

Extra for Experts!

• Try bending the copper into different shapes — coils, loops, or zig-zags — to see which spins best. Just make sure your shape is balanced so it can sit steadily on top of the battery.
• Experiment with using more or fewer magnets. How does that change the speed?
• Flip the magnets over to reverse the magnetic poles. Does your spinner change direction?

• Why do you think the wire has to be balanced so carefully?
• Where else in real life do you think motors like this might be used?
• What might happen if the wire didn’t touch the magnets properly?

A battery is full of power, tiny charged particles with energy to give! Some materials, like the copper wire used in this experiment, are really good at carrying this power from the battery. We call these materials conductive.

The magnets at the bottom of the battery are just like the ones on your fridge! and create a magnetic field. When the power flows through the copper wire while it’s sitting inside this magnetic field, it creates a small electromagnetic force. This force pushes sideways on the wire.

Because the wire is carefully balanced on the top of the battery, that sideways push makes it spin or rotate. As long as the wire keeps touching the battery and the magnets, the electrical current keeps flowing, meaning your Christmas decoration keeps spinning!