RUNNING HEADER: MAGNETIC ANIMAL REPELLENT LAB NOTEBOOK 1

Magnetic Animal Repellent Lab Notebook VII

Sidney Boakye, Michelle Miller, and Joaquin Valda
Senior Physics Mentorship
3/06/18
Dr. Psaker Lab
Governor’s School @ Innovation Park

Objectives:
Complete construction of upgraded apparatus

Setting up experiment

Data collection and the composition of that data into analyzable data
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Materials and Methods

Upon the discovery that our magnetic animal repeller was having a minimal effect on the

birds which came into its vicinity, we expedited our construction of a stronger version of our

device. For the purposes of organization, we call the first device “Alpha” and the second one

“Gamma”. Device Gamma outputs a magnetic field which is stronger than device Alpha’s by a

factor of 6. When it comes to component differences Gamma has 4 times as many batteries as

Alpha. Gamma also have a 14-gauge wiring as opposed to Alpha’s 24-gauge wire; this means

there is less wire resistance in Gamma. Of course, to house these materials Gamma will require a

larger container but this has been accounted for and the design has been completed.

We are very happy with the design for device Gamma since we were able to create a

compact, more powerful electromagnet which heats up at a much slower rate than other failed

designs. This is also very encouraging as Gamma is our most powerful design to date!
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Data and Results

Our device was placed in the testing site. We have observed no significant associated

change in bird behavior in relation to our artificial magnetic field. This is most likely due to the

short range on a magnetic field with a weaker output. As a result, we have adapted one of our

older designs to create a stronger electromagnet device. Our only concern is that our poor results

were due to the massive storm we had over the weekend.

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Future Goals

Setbacks are unfortunate but they can be minimized by proper planning and continuous

progress. M.A.R.T. has successfully done this. After the suboptimal results collected from device

Alpha we could easily transitions to device Gamma as we had already been working on it. In the

coming days we will finish the design of Gamma’s container and have it 3D printed. Then we

will set up the experiment once again and obtain results which we hope will support our

hypothesis. After collecting our data, we will compile it into a viewer friendly format which will

be presentable on Symposium day. We will also be recording our experiment in hopes of

capturing live footage of birds interacting with our device. So in addition to compiling our data

we will also be formatting a video of our experiment. It is after this that we will begin getting

ready for our final peer presentation and setting up our poster board for Symposium. We do not

plan on getting to these two step in the next two weeks though, but they are definitely in

consideration later in the month.

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References

Loss, S. R., Will, T., & Marra, P. P. (2014). Refining Estimates of Bird Collision and
Electrocution Mortality at Power Lines in the United States. Retrieved October 24, 2017,
from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4081594/

Staff Feb. 7, 2005 From the print edition Print Share Subscribe Donate Now. (2005, February
07). High Country News. Retrieved October 24, 2017, from
http://www.hcn.org/issues/291/15268

Patent US5884426 - Magnetic device for repelling birds. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2017,
from https://www.google.com/patents/US5884426ht