welcomes affiliate site HOOKED ON HAMSTERS
In an experiment in good old AMERICAN ingenuity, our top secret satellite office proposed the hypothesis that Sandy the Hamster could provide enough electrical power while running in his wheel to power PLANET ANDY. We said go for it but don't hurt the hamster!
Materials Used: Sandy the Hamster; Hamster cage with excercise wheel; Direct current Motor/Generator; Milliampere meter; Wood Block; 2 screws.
Procedure: 1)Materials were gathered 2)Direct current motor/generator was attached to hamster cage using wood block and screws 3)Direct current motor was positioned so that the spinning hamster wheel would rotate the arm of the motor/generator 4)Positive and negative leads from the motor were attached to the positive and negative poles of the milliampere meter (respectively) 5)Sandy entered his wheel and started running 6)The needle on the milliampere meter moved from 0 to its maximum point as Sandy began to run.
Results: 8 out of 10 trials
of the Hamster Power Station were successful. In these trials, when Sandy
began spinning his wheel to rotate the arm of the direct current motor,
the milliampere meter registered at maximum capacity. In the 2 trials that
failed, it was observed that Sandy was spinning his wheel in a counter-clockwise
direction. When polarity on the meter was reversed, the trials were once
again successful.
Conclusions: The hypothesis that one hamster can generate enough electricity to power PLANET ANDY was incorrect. The tests showed that one hamster can generate enough electrical power to move the needle on a milliampere meter to the maximum level. A milliampere is 1/1000 of an ampere. It takes about 1 ampere to light a 100 watt bulb. Therefore, it would take about 1000 hamsters running at full speed to light a 100 - watt bulb. Based on this finding it would take about 100,000 hamsters running at full speed to power PLANET ANDY. It's a good idea but we don't have room for the cages.
Please note that Sandy the Hamster was not hurt in any way during this experiment. Data was collected only when Sandy himself chose to excercise.
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