Homemade Magnet - Sick Science!

Create an electromagnet from household materials

If you could make a magnet in the comfort of your own home, would you still go to the store to buy one? What if we told you that we could teach you how to make an electromagnet using materials you can find around your house? In true kitchen science fashion, we've come up with a fun, hands-on method for creating an electromagnet out of little more than a nail and a battery.

Materials

One C battery
An iron nail
Wire with exposed ends
Paper clips, staples, or other small metal objects

Experiment
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To start off, try picking up the small metal objects with the nail. It doesn't work, does it? It's fair to assume that the nail is not a magnet.
Now let's turn the nail into a magnet. Take the wire with exposed ends and wrap it tightly around the nail.
Make sure that the wire covers about two-thirds of the nail. Leave about an inch of each end of the wire not coiled around the nail.
Place one of the exposed ends of the wire on the positive end of the battery.
Take the other exposed end of wire and place it on the negative end of the battery.
With the apparatus you've created, try picking up the paper clips again. It works!

How does it work?

What you have created with the tightly wound wire is called a solenoid. A solenoid is a coil wound tightly around a metallic core. When an electrical current passes through the wire, it creates a magnetic field. When you wrap the wire around the iron nail, you create a simple electromechanical solenoid. These electromagnets are typically very weak but useful at short range - like when picking up paper clips with a nail.

Additional Info

Now that you know how it works, try experimenting with some variables:

Try using a smaller or larger nail. Does the size of the nail affect how large of an object you can pick up?
Try using an A, AA, or AAA battery instead of the C battery. What happens with the other size of battery?