PComp Final Project: Levitation Frustration |

It seems that I changed course in the middle of my final project for PComp. So, the jewel heist concept was moved to the back burner. I became enamored with the idea of building a levitation machine that would involve the creation of an electromagnet a few weeks ago but did not know where to begin. I suppose that the concept arose as a result of a self test that we had to take for class. In this test, I realized how uncomfortable I was to the concepts of electricity. I also felt that I was weak in areas of fabrication. So, this levitation concept was a means to push and test myself. Whether or not I failed did not matter. I simply had to see whether or not I could pull it off.

So, I scoured for sources as to where to begin as far as building a levitation machine utilizing magnets. So, I cam across a forum discussion that created a levitation device utilizing the following materials:

1 Arduino Uno
1 100 Ohm metal film resistor
1 10K Ohm metal film resistor
1 IR sender LED
1 1N1004
1 IR phototransistor
1 N channel power semiconductor
50 Meters of 24AWG enameled copper wire
1 Coil Former
1 12V 1.5A Power Supply
2 Neodymium rare-earth magnets

Before fabricating anything, here is a sketch of the base that I utilized as well as the schematics for my project.