Pill Bottle Motor

thingiverse

Most of the time when teachers showcase motors in the classroom you see them placing a coil of wire on two paperclips connecting them up to a battery and placing a magnet underneath it. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this demonstration, and it effectively shows how we utilize electricity and magnetism to produce rotational force, it doesn't genuinely demonstrate how motors are employed in real-world applications. To address this issue, I created an affordable and effective way to make a more practical motor that could be done as a lab or development project with my classroom. The primary casing of the motor is made from a pill bottle. The file is designed to fit the 3cm diameter pill bottles. I prefer using these because you can observe inside the motor while it's operating. If pill bottles are difficult for you to acquire, I also created another model that fits a standard 2in x 1in film canister. I was able to print 16 shafts on one single print, which is sufficient for my higher-level class. Between everything, each motor costs approximately $1 to manufacture.