Science- Fishing Rods

In science, we had a task. To make fishing rods and win the fishing derby! Not any kind of rods though,  we had to make electromagnet fishing rods! Me and my partner had decided on a plan like this...

We were going to have is work like this. The batteries would be on the edge of the wooden rod, then there would be the negative and positive wires extending out from the battery packs. The positive wire was attached to one end of the wire which was wrapped around six bolts. Six bolts would have more surface area, helping us pick up more items. Then we had the negative wire attached to a paper clip that had been taped down to the wooden rod. The plan was that the other end on the wire which had been wrapped around the bolts to also be taped down on the wooden rod, but right under the paper clip with a little piece peeking out, so that when we pushed the paper clip down, electricity could flow through (making the paper clip a switch).

That didn't actually work out that great, though. We only had a limited amount of wire, and we needed to wrap the wire around the bolts several times, so we had to change our plans a bit. Instead, we decided to use only one bolt, because after research, we found out that the more you can wrap a wire around a bolt, the better. Otherwise, though, everything remained the same.

We ran into more problems, though. We had multiple problems while testing. For example, we'd be able to pick a paper clip up, but then it would tumble back down. And mostly, we had problems with the switch popping out of place repeatedly. We then chose to do something else.

Our improvisation was a new switch, because it looked like it was working fine without the paper clip. So we added in a light bulb holder, because when we taped that down and attached wires to the light bulb holder's side, the light bulb lit up, also allowing the electromagnet to work. To turn it off, we unscrewed the lightbulb and electricity couldn't flow through. Then, however, we started having more and more problems with time. It took a long time to screw the lightbulb in and out, and the wires kept popping out of their places, so I said that we should go back to the paper clip idea. This time however, we would secure it and put a better one in. 

                                                                                                          Us trying out the switch

So finally, we had come up with a good plan that I think should be effective during the derby because it works well in the tests. We just had to put it all together, and make practice, practice, practice.