Mass Driver

In my follow up to my last post on how to build an electromagnet, I am going to explain how to build a mass driver, or in the scaled down version, a coil gun. To build a coil gun, you need all the same types of materials you needed for the electromagnet, just in different forms. You will need a lot of copper wire, a large battery(a car battery or two would be fine), a metal tube, and an iron projectile that fits snug in the tube. To make the coil gun(also known has a Gauss Gun after Carl Friedrich Gauss), wrap the copper wire around the tube(the tube will now be called the barrel), this creates an electromagnetic field. Attach one end of the copper wire to one of the terminals on the battery, but do not connect the other end. Place the iron projectile in one end of the barrel. To fire, place the other end of the wire onto a terminal, then after about a second, take it off. With enough copper coils and a big battery, it should fire. A mass driver is just a really big coil gun. They could be used to shoot iron projectiles over great distances, and if one is big enough, could even launch supply's into space. Be careful if you make one of these, it can be dangerous. Always take safety precautions, and never get out of hand. If you make one of these correctly, they can be really fun.

How to make an Electromagnet

An electromagnet is simply copper wire with an electric current passing through it. To make it stronger, you can wrap the wire around a magnetic material, like iron. The parts of an electromagnet are, the copper wire, piece of iron,(like an iron nail) and a power supply(battery).
To make it, take the iron bar and wrap the copper wire down and up the length of the iron bar. The loops of the copper wires create a solenoid. You can also insulate between the different layers of wire with electric type. This protects the different parts from over heating. When you are done wrapping the copper wire around the iron bar, attach one end of the wire to the positive terminal on the battery. Then attach the other end of the wire to the negative terminal of the battery. When this is done you have completed the circuit and you now have an electromagnet.