Homemade Science with Bruce Yeany | Supercharging the Fun Fly Stick - Van Der Graaf Generator // Homemade Science with Bruce Yeany @YeanyScience | Uploaded March 2017 | Updated October 2024, 1 week ago.
Adding a metal soda can dome to the top of a Fun Fly Stick will considerably increase it's voltage allowing for some additional demonstrations that can be done with it, sort of supercharging it. The voltage is high enough to produce small sparks up to around 1 inch in length. There are a lot of factors that determine the actual voltage on these types of generators but it is estimated that a one inch spark of this type can measure to be about 30,000 volts. The fly stick is an example of a Van Der Graaf generator that separates positive and negative charges with materials that are found on opposite ends of the triboelectric series. There are quite a few websites and videos offered here on youtube that get into detailed explanations of how these types of generators work and how different types of materials can become positively charged or negatively charged according to where they are located on the triboelectric series list.
This video offers an alternative for those that wanted a small VDG generator but didn't want to build one from scratch.
Note on comments: I appreciate seeing comments positive or negative, and learn from helpful criticism. However, I am a middle school teacher and many of my students visit this site, I will remove comments that I feel are offensive or inappropriate.
Adding a metal soda can dome to the top of a Fun Fly Stick will considerably increase it's voltage allowing for some additional demonstrations that can be done with it, sort of supercharging it. The voltage is high enough to produce small sparks up to around 1 inch in length. There are a lot of factors that determine the actual voltage on these types of generators but it is estimated that a one inch spark of this type can measure to be about 30,000 volts. The fly stick is an example of a Van Der Graaf generator that separates positive and negative charges with materials that are found on opposite ends of the triboelectric series. There are quite a few websites and videos offered here on youtube that get into detailed explanations of how these types of generators work and how different types of materials can become positively charged or negatively charged according to where they are located on the triboelectric series list.
This video offers an alternative for those that wanted a small VDG generator but didn't want to build one from scratch.
Note on comments: I appreciate seeing comments positive or negative, and learn from helpful criticism. However, I am a middle school teacher and many of my students visit this site, I will remove comments that I feel are offensive or inappropriate.
