Our first track we planed is very different from the one we have now. We thought that’s if we placed stript magnets all over the track on the south side and put the train on the south side then the train would levitate. But we were wrong. Also on our track we only used stript magnets and we layed about four on our track.

Our first track plan

We had a lot of problems. But, one stood out if them all. We only got one side to levitate. We tried everything but nothing worked. Then someone in my group had a really good idea. “ We should flip this magnet on the track and maybe it would levitate!”  The person said. So we did that and then……………….. It didn’t work. So and then someone else in my group noticed that the train and the tracks don’t line up. So then we lined it up and then………… It worked!!!

My group working together

For our final design we did  lot of things. There were two stript magnets in our track far apart from each other.   On our train we put strip magnets on opposite sides. We had stript magnets that reached both sides of our train. e only had one layer. 

In the beginning I felt really frustrated because we only got one side to float. When we tried to get it to float but it didn’t then I was mad and sad. But then when we got both sides to levitate, I was really happy!</span

Today we started day #2 of our maglev trains. We had some problems and some successes. The success is that we got one side to levitate. We used little disk magnets on the bottom of our train. So then when we tested it out we saw that one side levitated. We had six disk magnets on our vehicle. We put three on each side of our train.   We put them on the dotted side so they would repel to the track magnets. We only got one side to levitate but that’s better than nothing!

We also had some fails. There was one side of our train that did not float.  We learned from our mistake that disk magnets work better than strip magnets for our vehicle. Because of our fail we flipped the track magnet around to see if it would levitate like that. We tested it out and it still did not work.

My goal for my next design session is to get the left side of the train to levitate. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. But, my team always finds a way to fix things!

My group working together

A maglev train is a train that floats above a magnetic track. There are magnets on the train and track. The train floats about ten c.m.  above the track. The train can float higher depending on how many magnets there are on the track. For my group at first for the track our track only had one layer of repelling magnets so our train didn’t levitate. For our train we stacked disk magnets on top of eachother. That was a fail. So then we put other magnets on the bottom of the disk magnets and flipped the strip magnets around. Then the train levitate

Today on the tracks we put strip magnets on our track and for the train we put disk magnets on the same side. Then we put our train in out box and then we saw then it could levitate! But, before that we did fail . We put the magnets on repelling sides and then…… the train repelled and it floated! Everyone in my group cheered.

At first my experience in my group was ok. But, then when things started to come together my experience was great! We used a few tweaks and a lot a tape to make this possible. We’re not done yet though. We are working on moving our train across the track quicker and with a light push. It challenged us to make the tweaks because we didn’t know what was wrong at first but the we figured things out!

Our groups track diagram