Procedure

Opener Before doing anything with the motors it is a good idea to have students make simple electromagnets by coiling wire around a hollow tube and then connecting the ends to a voltage source. This demonstrates that simply running current through a wire produces a magnetic field. It is fun to illustrate how a nail gets "sucked in" to the hollow tube or how they can be used to pick things up. This should take most of one class period. At the end, hand out the instructions to the motors before handing out the motor kits themselves since it is incredibly easy to make mistakes and have students read over the directions in small groups and begin to ask them questions about how they are going to start making the motors.

Development Once students begin to make the motors it is mostly a matter of following the instructions included with the motor kits but with some important caveats. One is that even high school seniors need considerable "hand holding" and patient explanation to get through this. Also daigrams 7 and 8 in the instructions are more useful than most of the explanations. The directions don't make it entirely clear how to connect the wires, but the diagrams do. This is a very independent activity, so once people get started it is hopeless to try to keep the class all at the same step in the assembly process. Some people will naturally be faster and others will need more time. Most students take about 3 class periods to finish. Students seem to naturally want to help each other so it is best to take advantage of this.

Closure When most students have their motors working bring everyone together to talk about why they work and ask people what they think the most important design elements are. Also, ask people how they think the kits could have been designed better.