Lego Van de Graaff Generator
- Dec 12, 2024
- 2 min read
Any of you who joined the recent physics hub (#105) will already have come across this inspirational design from Rory Geoghegan, but I thought it was worth sharing more widely.
As a company Lego seem to focus on
their single-build kits these days. They can be fun to put together, but are designed so that they only really work if built according to the instructions, and are not meat to be disassembled once built. They're great in a lot of ways - but it is a pity that they have moved on from the more creative kits of the past, that encouraged the user to imagine their own uses and designs.
In putting together the VdG, Rory used parts from several older kits produced for education. In his words:
'I think the best of these were sets 1030 and 1032. The sets of cards were sold separately (as 1031 and 1033). Each card featured some application followed by instructions on how to assemble the main mechanism. This was usually followed by one or two extra assemblies without detailed instructions.
Set 1030 was focussed on basic physical principles. Set 1032 extended these and added an electric motor.'
Copies of the cards are available here:
The rollers for the VdG use Lego parts + a piece of PVC pipe, with paper added around the Lego 'wheel' to make it a tight fit in the PVC.
One design used a rubber band as a belt, but that apparently but wasn't great. The design in the video used a belt made from felt, and was good enough to get some flickers from a neon bulb. Though no sparks. Yet.
It took me a while to figure out why I recognised the dome and where you might come across such a thing....*
There are more detail available on the Physics Hub Padlet
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