van de graaff generator hair experiment

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A hair-raising experience with a Van de Graaff generator

Filmed at the Swiss Science Center Technorama , this hair-raising Van de Graaff generator demonstration from 2013 shares how charged hair strands repel each other, standing straight up and out.

What’s happening? From Vancouver’s Science World :

“A Van de Graaff generator pulls electrons from the Earth, moves them along a belt and stores them on the large sphere. These electrons repel each other and try to get as far away from each other as possible, spreading out on the surface of the sphere. The Earth has lots of room for electrons to spread out upon, so electrons will take any available path back to the ground. “The grounding rod is a smaller sphere, attached by a wire to the Earth. It provides a convenient path for electrons to move to the ground. If we bring the grounding rod close enough to the large sphere, the electrons rip through the air molecules in order to jump onto the grounding rod, creating a spark and crackling noise…”

“When a student puts a hand on the sphere, the electrons will spread out onto that person as they repel from the other electrons. They are most obvious in a person’s hair because the like charges of the electrons repel each other and cause the hairs to stand up and spread away from each other. As long as the person is standing on an insulated platform, the electrons will not be able to travel down to the ground and their hair will remain standing up.”

Visually related: How do you wash long hair in space?

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The science of static electricity, the raised fist afro comb: untold’s museum of artifacts that made america, the museum of science and energy’s van de graaff generator.

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How Van de Graaff Generators Work

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Experiments

There are millions of interesting experiments you can perform with your new Van de Graaff generator, but I will concentrate on the "hair raising" one. Have the lucky participant stand on top of an insulated surface (a Rubbermaid container top works well). It is critical for the person to be insulated from ground. If the charge cannot build up on the person, his/her hair will not stand up. Now, have the person put a hand on the sphere. Turn on the Van de Graaff generator and watch it go!

When the Van de Graaff generator starts charging, it transfers the charge to the person who is touching it. Since the person's hair follicles are getting charged to the same potential, they try to repel each other. This is why the hair actually stands up. It would not make a difference if the polarity of the Van de Graaff generator were reversed. As long as the person is insulated, the charge will build up (assuming, of course, that the hair is clean and dry).

My Van de Graaff generator will create sparks about 10 to 12 inches in length. I like to charge myself on it and point at the aluminum blinds on the window. The charge (electronic wind) will cause the blinds to move. I can do this from about 8 feet away with ease. Soap bubbles are also interesting to play with around the Van de Graaff generator. They initially are attracted to the Van de Graaff generator and float toward it; once they become charged by the Van de Graaff generator, they float away due to repulsion. There are multitudes of fun things you can do with your Van de Graaff generator. Use your imagination!

For more information, check out the links below!

If your Van de Graaff generator does not seem to be charging properly, make sure that it is clean. Avoid oils or debris. You can also use a hair dryer on it to remove any moisture. I go through this ritual every time I want to use my Van de Graaff generator. You will be amazed at the difference it can make. You may want to turn off all of the lights and run the Van de Graaff generator in the dark. You will see bluish-purple sparks shooting out where ever you have leakage. Try to eliminate the leakage with tape, epoxy or silicon. It may even take combinations of the three, but it will be worth your while to do so.

Related HowStuffWorks Articles

• How Atoms Work
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More Great Links!

• History of the Van de Graaff Generator
• Van de Graaff Electrostatic Generator Page
• WMU Physics - How Western Michigan University uses Van de Graaff generators
• New Electrostatic Generator

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Hair raising, what it shows:.

A Van de Graaff generator will apply a charge to its dome and anything else in contact with the dome. Should that object be a person, they obtain a net surplus of charge (be it positive or negative). It is especially noticeable with hair, as each individual strand is repelled from every other and from the scalp.

How it works:

Details of the Van de Graaff are written in the Van de Graaff Generator demo. The volunteer should stand on an insulating platform (we use either a wooden stool, milk crate, or plastic bucket), and place both hands upon the Van de Graaff dome. The operator should switch it on and stand back. Before stepping down, allow the generator motor to stop, and discharge the dome with the earthed rod.

Setting it up:

Place the Van de Graaff in an open space on the hall floor. The bucket should be placed a reasonable distance from the base of the generator (the victim will need to lean across) so as to avoid discharge to other parts of the body. Remember to dry the wig overnight before the class with a heat lamp (don't put it too close or you'll melt it).

Obviously long hair is an essential qualification for the volunteer. Should there not be a suitable respondent, the lecturer (if they do not have the necessary locks) can be provided with a wig 1 Humidity (as with all electrostatics demos) plays a large role in the success of this display.

1 We have a long blonde model from Franklin Fashions Corp., Valley Stream NY 11580

Demo Subjects

Newtonian Mechanics Fluid Mechanics Oscillations and Waves Electricity and Magnetism Light and Optics Quantum Physics and Relativity Thermal Physics Condensed Matter Astronomy and Astrophysics Geophysics Chemical Behavior of Matter Mathematical Topics

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Van de Graaff generator

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The Van de Graaff generator is a classroom classic with a surprising heritage in cutting-edge particle physics. As well as making your hair stand on end, these machines were used to accelerate particles through millions of volts.

1 × Van de Graaff generator 1 × electrically-insulating stool Some confetti, or aluminium foil, or foil cake trays

The demonstration

This demonstration involves high voltages, and so it should never be done by anyone with a pacemaker or other internal electrical device, or who thinks they might be pregnant.

The first part of this demo requires a volunteer from the audience. It works best on someone with long, light-coloured hair free from ties and styling products: light hair is often thinner, which means it will stand up more easily, and is also easier to see. Don’t pick on an individual (they might be pregnant, or just shy!), but if you could encourage someone fitting that description that gives you the best chance of success.

• Give your volunteer a round of applause and find out their name. Check that they aren’t wearing any metal jewelry etc, and ask that they remove it if so. Put it safely to one side.
• Get the volunteer to stand on an electrically-insulating stool. Place one hand on top of the generator dome, and get them to hold out their other hand flat. In this, place some confetti, pieces of aluminium foil, or cake tins. If you have a suitable light, dim the main lights and illuminate their head from behind to emphasise the forthcoming hairdo.
• Check they’re feeling OK, turn on the generator, and stand back. The only thing they need to do is not to take their hand from the dome and, should they do so, not try to replace it (or they’ll get a shock!). Make sure the earthed globe is a long way from the main one to avoid shocking the volunteer too.
• The objects in their hand will leap out and, by the time that’s finished, their hair should be standing up pretty nicely. Get them to shake their head around a bit to encourage this.
• Get the volunteer to take their hand off the dome, and jump down with both feet, and give them a round of applause!

Having shown the amusing effect of high voltage on a person, we can now explore the limitations of these devices as particle accelerators. The problem is sparks, and we can use the sparks to work out the voltage to which we charged up our hapless volunteer!

• If you haven’t already, dim the lights.
• Take the grounded sphere and place it near the dome of the Van de Graaff generator. When you get within a few centimetres, a spark should leap across with a crack. Do this a few times from different angles to show the audience.

Vital statistics

breakdown voltage of air: 30,000 V/cm

highest-voltage Van de Graaff: 25.5 MV

length of spark from Van de Graaff LHC: 7 TV ÷ 30 kV/cm = 2300 km

How it works

The rubber belt inside the Van de Graaff generator runs between two rollers made of different materials, causing electrons to transfer from one roller to the rubber, and from the rubber onto the other roller, by the triboelectric effect. Brushes at the top and bottom provide a source and sink for these charges, and the top brush is electrically connected to the Van de Graaff’s dome and so the charge will spread out across the dome.

This accumulated charge would like to distribute itself over as large a volume as possible, and so it will also spread out across anything you connect to the metal dome, including your volunteer. The reason it’s important to stand them on something electrically-insulating is that the charge would like even more to spread out over the whole Earth, and connecting them to that will both massively reduce the effect, and also cause an electric shock as the current flows from the Van de Graaff to earth through its unfortunate human intermediary.

When insulated, the build-up of charge on the volunteer causes forces light objects to spread out as far as possible too, causing the confetti or foil to leap from their hand and then causing the individual hairs on their head to stand up. When they jump off the stool, the charge immediately flows to earth and their hair will immediately return to normal.

To work out the voltage of the Van de Graaff generator, and thus the voltage on our volunteer, we can use the length of the sparks in combination with the breakdown voltage of air—the voltage required to cause air to dissociate into ions and become conductive. This voltage is about 30,000 V/cm for dry air (hot, humid or lower-pressure air will tend to spark more easily). Sparks from the Van de Graaff are typically a few centimetres long, giving a voltage between 50,000 and 150,000 V.

Their propensity to generate sparks is the fundamental limitation of Van de Graaff accelerators, or indeed any accelerator design based on a large, static voltage. Those used for research managed to get up to over 20 MV by clever use of insulating materials, right down to careful choice of the gas in which the generator sits to minimise the chance of sparks. A Van de Graaff can thus be used to accelerate particles up to reasonably high energies: moving an electron through 1 V gains it an energy of 1 eV, so energies of over 20 MeV are achievable by this method (and more if accelerating nuclei with greater than a single electron charge).

However, modern particle physics has gone some way beyond this: the Large Hadron Collider will ultimately use beams which have 7 TeV of energy each: equivalent to accelerating a proton through 7,000,000,000,000 V. If we divide that by the breakdown voltage of air, we can work out the length of a spark we might get from an LHC employing a single, giant Van de Graaff generator to accelerate its particles. We get 2,300 km: easily enough to stretch, for example, from Switzerland to anywhere in the UK.

• HowStuffWorks: How Van de Graaff generators work
• Google Answers: high voltage arcing distances
• Wikipedia: Van de Graaff generator

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Hair Raising

Get an electrostatic hairdo in this classic demonstration.

Teachable Topics:

• Van de Graaff Generator
• Electric charge

A Van de Graaff (VDG) generator is a machine that continually draws electrons off a large metal dome. The dome thus becomes strongly positively charged once the machine is turned on. If an object touches the dome on this machine, that object also becomes positively charged because some of the electrons from the object are drawn to the positively-charged dome.

Figure 1: Illustration of how a Van der Graaf Generator works

Charges with the same sign repel one another. If a person touches the VDG, the person's body becomes positively charged. All the hairs on the person then begin to repel one another. To spread as far apart as possible, the hairs then stand up, as seen in the video below.

• a Van de Graaff Generator
• a wooden chair
• a wooden stick (such as a meter stick)
• a volunteer
• Set the Van de Graaff generator on a table and place the wooden chair a few feet from it.
• Have someone sit or stand on the chair with his/her feet off the ground and the generator off.
• Get the volunteer to place his/her hands on the Van de Graaff.
• Flip the switch, and watch the person's hair stand on end! (People with medium to long, fine hair make the best volunteers.
• After the demo is finished, switch the generator off, then touch the volunteer with the wooden stick to draw off the remaining electric charge.

SAFETY WARNINGS:

• Make sure the Van de Graaff Generator is turned off before anyone touches it, otherwise the person risks getting shocked.
• Shocks through fingers and toes hurt the most. If you must discharge yourself without using the wooden stick, it's best to use a bent knuckle.
• Use the grounding rod to turn the generator on and off. After it is shut off, touch the rod to the to of the generator to remove any risidual charge.

Random Demo

• Standing Waves and the Strobe Effect

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5b10.15 - van de graaff - wig and streamers.

Attach the wig to the Van de Graff generator using the Velcro.  The hairs of the wig should stand up and repel each other as charge builds up on the dome.  The hair may be replaced by Kim wipes or the cloth streamers for the same effect.

A section of cat's fur may be set on top of the Van de Graff if a wig or streamer is unavailable.  If not taped down the cat's fur will fly off the Van de Graff. 

• George W. Ficken, Jr., "Weird Electrostatics Demonstration", AJP, Vol. 42, #2, Feb. 1974, p. 166.
• Ea-8, Ec-3:  Freier and Anderson,  A Demo Handbook for Physics.
• Robert A. Morse, "Laboratory Activity 5: The Electrostatic Hydra", Teaching about Electrostatics, p. 3 - 16.
• George M. Hopkins, "Frictional Electricity", Experimental Science, p. 363.
• Janice VanCleave, "Fly Away", 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre, & Incredible Experiments, p. 108.
• Rudolf F. Graf, "Making a Paper Spider", Safe and Simple Electrical Experiments, p. 24.
• Rudolf F. Graf, "An Electrostatic Palm Tree", Safe and Simple Electrical Experiments, p. 25.
• Joseph Frick, "# 257 - Experiments with the Electrical Machine - The Electrical Spider", Physical Technics: Or Practical Instructions for Making Experiments in Physics and the Construction of Physical Apparatus with the Most Limmited Means, p. 277.
• "The Head of Hair", Pike's Illustrated Catalogue of Scientific & Medical Instruments, 1984, p. 277.

Disclaimer: These demonstrations are provided only for illustrative use by persons affiliated with The University of Iowa and only under the direction of a trained instructor or physicist.  The University of Iowa is not responsible for demonstrations performed by those using their own equipment or who choose to use this reference material for their own purpose.  The demonstrations included here are within the public domain and can be found in materials contained in libraries, bookstores, and through electronic sources.  Performing all or any portion of any of these demonstrations, with or without revisions not depicted here entails inherent risks.  These risks include, without limitation, bodily injury (and possibly death), including risks to health that may be temporary or permanent and that may exacerbate a pre-existing medical condition; and property loss or damage.  Anyone performing any part of these demonstrations, even with revisions, knowingly and voluntarily assumes all risks associated with them.

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5A50.30 Van de Graaff Generator

Electrostatics, triboelectricity, dielectric breakdown

Static charge builds up on the Van de Graaff generator dome. Many different individual demos can be done with it. The Van de Graaff can be used to charge up the hair of a Barbie doll or person. When tart pans or rice krispies are charged up, they rain down on the ground one by one. Fluorescent lights will flash when sparked by the generator. A grounded dome or discharge wand can demonstrate dielectric breakdown in air.

As with all electrostatic experiments, unless conditions are ideal (dry, cold), the demonstration may perform worse than expected.

• [1] Van de Graaff generator
• [1] Discharge wand
• [1] Barbie doll
• [1] Plastic step stool
• [10] Tart pan
• [1] Grounded tower
• [1] Ornament on a stick
• [1] Fluorescent light with attached banana cable and clip
• [1] Leiden jar and wand
• [1] Semiconductor and pin
• [1] Flashlight
• [1] Extension cord

Classroom Assembly

• Put the Van de Graaff somewhere away from computers and plug it in.

Important Notes

• People with pacemakers, insulin pumps, cochlear implants, or other critical devices should not come near the Van de Graaff.
• Ensure the Van de Graaff is not near any computers or other electronics, such as phones.
• People being charged on the Van de Graaff should not touch the dome again after letting go.
• For the demo of charging someone's hair, try to pick someone with shoulder-length hair.
• When transporting the Van de Graaff on a bumpy path, the plexiglass casing and attached belt mount can rotate, twisting the belt. Be sure to straighten that out before use.
• Test the Van de Graaff just before show time to avoid untimely failures.

Barbie or tart pans

• Place Barbie or tart pans on top of the dome. Tart pans should have the open part facing down.
• Turn on the Van de Graaff generator. Barbie's hair should flare out or the tart pans should fly off.
• While grounding the Van de Graaff, turn it off.
• Get the volunteer to stand on the step stool, putting one hand on the Van de Graaff dome.
• Tell the volunteer to not touch the dome again if she or he lets go.
• Start the generator.
• Tell the volunteer to shake one's head.
• Show the volunteer what he or she looks like in the mirror.
• Use just the grounded banana cable ( not the grounding rod) to make the volunteer's hair dance by bringing the end of the cable close to the dome, then away, then close, and so on.
• Tell the volunteer to let go of the Van de Graaff and turn it off.
• Note how the volunteer's hair is still standing up.
• Tell her or him to jump off the stool, and most of the charge should drain away. Alternatively, tell the volunteer discharge by elbowing the elbow of another volunteer standing on the ground, then jumping off the stool.

Chain of pain (zap several people)

• Get a few volunteers.
• Everyone except the one standing on the stool and touching the Van de Graaff should link hands or pinkies. The last one in the chain should be touching a grounded object, like a faucet, if possible.
• Start the Van de Graaff generator.
• The person touching the Van de Graaff should make elbow-to-elbow contact with the next person on the chain.
• Stop the Van de Graaff generator.

Fluorescent light

• Ground the light by plugging the banana cable into the grounding port on the Van de Graaff generator.
• Bring the fluorescent light closer to the generator. Further from the dome, the light will periodically illuminate from relatively large sparks. Close to the dome, the light will almost continuously illuminate from many small sparks.
• Ground the generator and turn it off.

Dielectric breakdown

• Set up the grounded tower next to the Van de Graaff generator, with grounding wire plugged in to the generator's grounding port.
• Start the Van de Graaff.
• Vary the distance between the Van de Graaff and the grounded tower as required.
• Ground the Van de Graaff and turn it off.

Oscillating ornament

• Set up the grounded tower 20–30 cm from the Van de Graaff generator, with grounding wire plugged in to the generator's grounding port.
• Place the ornament on a stick such that the ornament is suspended between the Van de Graaff and grounded tower.
• Adjust the ornament's string length or position until the ornament oscillates.

Additional Resources

• PIRA 5A50.30
• Don't attempt this at home!

Last revised

• Original construction: purchased. Van de Graaff generator is Winsco N100-V. It takes Winsco RP-601 replacement belts.
• Replacement belts also available from Boreal (as of 2022) as item number 470005-528.

Related demos

If you have any questions about the demos or notes you would like to add to this page, contact Ricky Chu at ricky_chu AT sfu DOT ca.

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The Van-de-Graaff-generator can produce high voltages of up to 500,000 volts. With this high voltage, wonderful experiments can be demonstrated.

The classic is holding your hands on the metal sphere as it charges, the results really can be hair-raising! How does it work? The electric charge is transferred to the body. As like charges repel each other, the hair on the body is repelled and spreads apart to get as far away as possible from itself.

Van-de-Graaff-Generator: The Experiments

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Van De Graaff Generator Wonders

Activity length, 20-40 mins., electricity forces and motion, activity type, discrepant event (demonstration only).

Most people have seen a Van de Graaff generator before at a science centre or on TV. You know that it makes peoples' hair stand on end, but do you actually know how it works?

Van de Graaff experiments are all based on the fact that like charges repel.

A Van de Graaff generator pulls electrons from the Earth, moves them along a belt and stores them on the large sphere. These electrons repel each other and try to get as far away from each other as possible, spreading out on the surface of the sphere. The Earth has lots of room for electrons to spread out upon, so electrons will take any available path back to the ground.

The grounding rod is a smaller sphere, attached by a wire to the Earth. It provides a convenient path for electrons to move to the ground. If we bring the grounding rod close enough to the large sphere, the electrons rip through the air molecules in order to jump onto the grounding rod, creating a spark and crackling noise.

When a fluorescent light tube approaches the negatively charged generator, the electrons on the generator flow through the tube and the person holding it. Flowing electrons result in an electrical current, lighting up the light tube. It doesn't take very much current to light a fluorescent bulb!

Putting Styrofoam peanuts or confetti on top of the Van de Graaff generator can create a cool trick. The electrons that collect on the sphere spread out into the Styrofoam peanuts and confetti, making the little, light objects negatively charged. When the negative charges on the peanuts repel the negative charges on the generator, the peanuts push off the sphere.

When a student puts a hand on the sphere, the electrons will spread out onto that person as they repel from the other electrons. They are most obvious in a person's hair because the like charges of the electrons repel each other and cause the hairs to stand up and spread away from each other. As long as the person is standing on an insulated platform, the electrons will not be able to travel down to the ground and their hair will remain standing up.

Explain how static charge causes materials to attract or repel each other.

Per Class or Group: A Van de Graaff Generator (available at Arbor Scientific ) a plastic stool Styrofoam peanuts (or confetti) metal pie pan a mirror

Key Questions

• Where are the electrons?
• What is making your hair stand on end?
• Why doesn’t the hair come down after the machine has been turned off?
• What caused a shock when the volunteer touched a fellow student?
• Why did your teacher ground the generator before allowing the volunteer to step off the stool?
• What is the role of the plastic stool?

Safety note:  Make sure you ground the large sphere after each use by touching it with the ground wire or small sphere. Although the Van de Graaff generator produces a very low current, it may cause problems with people who have heart problems or a pacemaker. Warn students they may get small shocks which will scare them more than hurt them.

Part 1: Making Sparks

• Touch the small sphere (connected to the ground wire) to the dome.
• Turn the knob counter clockwise.
• Turn the generator on.
• Slowly turn the knob clockwise so the motor turns the belt.
• Take the small sphere away and let a charge accumulate on the dome. Ask a student to turn off the lights to make it easier to see the sparks.
• Move the small sphere around the sphere in different positions so that everyone can see the sparks.

Part 2: Sautéing Styrofoam 

• Ground the dome by touching the grounding rod to it.
• Without removing the grounding rod, place Styrofoam peanuts (or confetti) on top of the large sphere.
• Take the ground away, and the Styrofoam peanuts will fly off the generator.
• This can be repeated by placing a metal pie panplate (or three!) on top of the generator and repeating the steps above.

Part 3: Hair-Raising Experience

• Ask a student to step up onto the insulated stool.
• Without removing the grounding rod, ask the volunteer to put one hand on the dome, the other hand by their side and make sure they understand not to move their hands until you tell them to.
• Take the ground away, and their hair will start to stand up. Shaking their head will help too!
• Hold the mirror so that the volunteer can see their new hair-do!
• Ask the volunteer to move their hand from the ball to their side, and to keep it there. Immediately ground the Van de Graaffand then turn it off.
• The volunteer can simply step off the stool or touch elbows with a classmate to get rid of their extra electrons (note: touching elbows will result in a shock!).
• Place a piece of fake fur on the large sphere, the individual fur strands will stand.
• Tape streamers to your volunteer, like an extra-long moustache!
• Have someone hold onto the large sphere while blowing soap bubbles with a wand, the bubbles will become positively charged and will be attracted to anything that is grounded e.g. a person walking by.
• A fly stick is a miniature, battery powered Van de Graaff generator. It charges mylar objects, which are then repelled by the stick (and by each other). You can make small objects hop up and down between the stick and your hand or levitate the more visible ones. For fun ideas, check out the Educational Innovations' teacher blog.

About the sticker

Artist: Jeff Kulak

Jeff is a senior graphic designer at Science World. His illustration work has been published in the Walrus, The National Post, Reader’s Digest and Chickadee Magazine. He loves to make music, ride bikes, and spend time in the forest.

Comet Crisp

T-Rex and Baby

Artist: Michelle Yong

Michelle is a designer with a focus on creating joyful digital experiences! She enjoys exploring the potential forms that an idea can express itself in and helping then take shape.

Buddy the T-Rex

Science Buddies

Artist: Ty Dale

From Canada, Ty was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1993. From his chaotic workspace he draws in several different illustrative styles with thick outlines, bold colours and quirky-child like drawings. Ty distils the world around him into its basic geometry, prompting us to look at the mundane in a different way.

Western Dinosaur

Time-Travel T-Rex

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Static electricity, have you ever rubbed a balloon on your head if you have, you may wonder why your hair…, electrical energy, electric motors are everywhere in your house, almost every mechanical movement that you see around you is caused by…, current electricity, electric current is the flow of electrons through a complete circuit of conductors. it is used to power everything from…, related school offerings.

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Note: All electrostatic demos work better on cold, dry days.

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The Demonstration: The volunteer puts her hand on the metal ball and her hair stands on end.

Quick Physics: The Van de Graaff generator works by static electricity, like shuffling your feet across the carpet and shocking yourself on the doorknob. Big rubber bands move over a piece of felt and strip away the felt’s electrons. The electrons move up the rubber band to the metal ball and into the person. The electrons repel each other, so they try to get as far away from each other as possible. We see this effect when the volunteer’s hair moves as far away from the body as it can!

The Details: A Van de Graaff generator is a device for making lots of static electricity. Static electricity is made from extra charges stored some place so that they can’t move. Normally charges don’t like to collect in one place. They like to find opposite charges as partners and run away from particles with the same charge. The Van de Graaff generator used in the demonstration can store up to about 300,000 Volts of the same kind of charge. Compared to the normal house voltage (about 120 Volts) that’s a lot!

The generator makes static electricity the same way you do when you rub your feet on the carpet and then touch a doorknob. Inside the generator is a giant rubber band that rubs across a piece of felt, stealing its electrons. The rubber band then spins around and the electrons travel up to the big metal ball on top. If you have a hand on the metal ball, the electrons will go into you.

Generally, the stored charges on the Van de Graaff generator want to try to get into the ground. The earth is very big and the negatively charged particles (electrons) can get very far away from each other. If a metal ball, which is connected to the ground, is brought near the generator, the charges will jump through the air from the generator to the ball.

If you touch the generator, all that electricity will go through your body giving you a big shock. It can actually be dangerous. You can be protected from the ground by standing on a piece of rubber or plastic. We say plastic and rubber are insulators since charges can’t travel through them very easily. When you touch the generator now, the charges can’t get to the ground. You are now filled up with electrons. The electrons don’t like each other and are trying to get as far away from each other as possibly. Usually this makes your hair stand up because it is filled with electrons that are repelling each other.

Note : This demonstration does not work well on humid days, so we often don’t use it in the summer or any rainy days throughout the year.  

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Science project, van de graaff generator experiments.

Lightning is the electronic discharge between particles in the air and clouds and the ground. Electricity is carried through current , or the flow of electrons, and lightning is caused by very large currents, which is why it can be so deadly when it strikes. Large currents that cause lightning also cause high voltages. Voltage is the “potential difference” between two places, meaning it describes the ability and likelihood of electric charge to flow from one place to another. If current is relatively low, voltage can be very high and still very safe. The Van de Graaff generator in this experiment operates at high voltages but low currents, similar to the static electricity you experience after rubbing your shoes on carpet and touching a doorknob on a dry day.

You may have seen a Van de Graaff generator in a science museum before. It is an electrostatic generator, and creates static electricity by building up very large voltages on its surface by moving a belt over a terminal and the electric charge accumulates on the surface of a hollow metal sphere. These spheres can hold high enough potential differences to produce a visible spark when objects are brought close. A small, table-top generator can get up to 100,000 V (volts)! One in a museum can get up to 5 megavolts—that’s 5,000,000 V! This is much higher than a typical battery, which is about 1.5 V. This apparatus was invited in 1929 by Robert Van de Graaff, an American scientist.

Explore concepts in current and voltage with a Van de Graaff generator.

What will happen if you touch the generator when it is on?

• 2 Van de Graaff generators
• Rubber-soled shoes
• Costume wig
• Wear rubber-soled shoes! This will help insulate you from the ground. 
• Set up the Van de Graaff generator on a table top.
• Touch the generator while it is off to discharge any static electricity currently on the surface.
• Turn on the generator.
• Touch it! What happens? How does it feel?
• Keeping your hand on the generator that is on, bring your free hand closer to the metal fork. What happens?
• Turn off the generator.
• Place the costume wig over the generator. Turn it on and observe what happens.
• Turn off the generator and remove the wig.
• Take the metal object (like a fork) and rub it on an insulated object, like the carpet or clothing. Why do you have to do this?
• Bring it close to the sphere and watch what happens.

Touching the generator while it’s on will cause your hair to stand up! Similarly, the hair on the wig will stand up when the generator is on. Bringing your free hand close to a metal object will discharge electricity from your body and you will hear an audible pop! Bringing a positively charged charged metallic object close to the negatively charged generator will produce a visible spark, like tiny lightning!

Rubber shoes help to insulate you from the ground, allowing charge to build up on your body rather than flow straight through you into the ground, the area with the lowest electric potential. A plastic stepping stool or other object made of insulated material would also work well. Carpet is also a decent insulator, which is why you can often scoot around the carpet with shoes on and shock your friends with the static electricity that you build up.

When the generator is on, it is negatively charged as the electrons amass on the sphere’s surface. When you touch the sphere, the electrons flow onto your body, which is neutrally charged. As the electrons flow over the surface, they reach the hairs on your arms and on your head. Like charges repel each other, and because the hairs are so light the charges repel enough to move the hair away from the rest of your body. This is the same reason the strands of the wig stand up.

The sound produced when static electricity is discharged is caused by the electrons jumping across the air barrier all at once! Lightning makes a sound as well, the electric discharge that happens in the air creates the audible boom we know as thunder. We see the lightning first before we hear the thunder because light travels faster than sounds.

Rubbing a metal object like a fork on the carpet or on fabric will cause many of the electrons to move onto whatever you are rubbing the object on. This will create a positively charged object. Bringing this near the negatively charged Van de Graaff generator can create a potential difference large enough to produce a visible spark. If you don’t get a spark, it is likely that your object is not positively charged enough.

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Hair-Raising Fun!

Making sense of student-generated diagrams

The Science Teacher—September/October 2022 (Volume 90, Issue 1)

By Sherab Tenzin, Mihye Won, and David Treagust

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Van de Graaff generator safety notes

The Van de Graaff generator must be inspected in the same way as other equipment and must be determined that it is safe before using it. While a short shock can be experienced by coming in contact with Van De Graaff generator, there are no reports of serious injury caused by it. Though the risk is small, due to difference in the sensitivity and potential medical issues, some persons may experience the shock to be very unpleasant or painful. After the hair-standing-demonstration, a sudden discharge should be avoided by touching objects made from wood (such as a wooden ruler). It is best to avoid contact with metal fittings.

Before allowing a volunteer to physically come in contact with the Van de Graaff, shut off the generator and discharge the sphere. Once their hands have been placed on the sphere, the generator can be turned on and off in short bursts to slowly build up the charge. Once the subject’s hair is fully extended, the generator can be shut off, though the charge will slowly drain away as long as the generator is off. If you leave the unit running, the effect is much more pronounced—but more importantly, sparks may begin jumping from the volunteer’s body to nearby objects and/or the floor which could create a potential hazard and resulting safety risk.

It is strongly recommended that anyone with medical issues involving medical equipment implants like pacemakers; insulin pumps; hearing aid or any medical-related electronic devices; and also anyone prone to heart issues, nerve disorders or seizures, avoid an operating Van De Graaff generator.

People with heart conditions and medical equipment implants should be discouraged from taking part in the experiment. Electronic devices should be kept away from the generator as it is known to damage electronic circuits.

Van de Graaff generators can also present a real potential hazard to electronic devices with electronic chips or circuit boards such as cell phones, cameras, watches, computers, clocks, headsets, TVs, modems, routers or phones plugged into the same circuit as the generator. Therefore, electronic devices should be kept at least 20 feet away just to be safe.

Also, do not operate near electrical equipment such as computers, televisions, or magnetic recordable devices (VCR tapes or floppy disks). Make sure no flammable gases are present.

Do not use a Van de Graaff generator near water, grounded water faucets, or other grounded objects such as doors or walls.

The motor produces a lot of heat over time and can damage the belt or motor itself. Do not run the van de Graaff for long periods of time to prevent potential overheating.

Lastly, never allow students to use a Van de Graaff generator unsupervised!

• For additional safety information relative to safely operating a Van de Graaff Generator, see: “Van de Graaff Generator Safety” by Flinn Scientific at: https://www.flinnsci.com/api/library/Download/55117bbd809b4730a34e5c3c2335fc31

“Van de Graaff Generator Safety” by Nuffield Foundation at: https://spark.iop.org/van-de-graaff-generator-safety#gref

S cience diagrams are an integral part of science because they are an important means of conveying and visualizing abstract science content ( Kozma 2003 ). In recent years, researchers have demonstrated the educational benefits of encouraging students to draw their own conceptual diagrams, rather than focusing on interpreting diagrams given to them ( Tippett 2016 ). Drawing conceptual diagrams not only helps students’ sensemaking process but also their construction of deeper scientific understanding ( Ainsworth et al. 2011 ).

To help students utilize this powerful learning strategy, teachers need to be aware of how to support and guide students’ drawing diagrams. However, there are no practical resources for teachers to adopt to interpret students’ diagrams and provide students with constructive feedback for conceptual and representational knowledge development.

In this article, we explain the method that researchers developed after many rounds of evaluating student-generated diagrams. We start with an explanation of the lesson and the importance of teachers having hands-on experiences drawing the diagrams before the lesson. Then, we suggest that teachers explore the concept to gain a deeper understanding and ensure that the clarity of the concept is evident. Then during and after the lesson, we look at four overarching procedural features of analyzing students’ diagrams: the importance of focusing on the big picture as well as on details by zooming in and out, use of representational conventions, reading the written text, and scrutinizing the diagram multiple times.

To illustrate the diagram analysis, we chose one particular lesson from a ninth-grade science class on static electricity using a Van de Graaff generator with 21 students. In the beginning of the class, the teacher performs a short demonstration. A student, standing on a rubber mat, touches a positively charged Van de Graaff generator (see Safety Note). After the student’s hand touches the generator, his hair slowly rises and stays up even after removing his hand from the generator. His hair falls only when the student steps off the rubber mat and touches the floor.

After a short class discussion, students draw a diagram of their understanding of what happened in four stages of the demonstration and explain why they occur:

• Before touching the dome (no contact)
• While touching the dome (in contact)
• After touching the dome (after contact), but before jumping off the insulating mat
• Off the insulating mat and touching the ground

Before the lesson

Draw your own diagrams.

Before asking students to draw conceptual diagrams, it is important for teachers themselves to draw the diagrams. This activity not only provides a clear sense of what the teacher is aiming for students to draw, such as a causal explanation in relation to the key science concepts, but also helps understand the conceptual and representational challenges that students would face while drawing diagrams. The diagram will also serve as a reference point. Figure 1 shows the sample diagram the first author drew and the description of the key concepts.

Sample diagram by the first author (Van de Graaff generator experiment).

The first diagram shows the setup of the experiment—a person with neutral charge (positive and negative equally distributed throughout the body), the Van de Graaff generator (positively charged metal dome and rubber/glass belt moving positive and negative charges), and insulator/rubber mat (blocking a flow of charge from and to the ground). The second diagram shows the flow of electrons from the person to the metal dome. The person becomes positive and hair stands up because the same charges repel. The third diagram shows the insulator stopping the flow of electrons from the ground to the person. In the fourth diagram, electrons move from the ground to the person and neutralize the positively charged body. And hair falls as it becomes neutral.

Organize the science concepts and the use of representational conventions

This activity is linked to the previous one. Drawing a diagram will help in identifying and organizing the concepts involved in the experiment. This process ensures clarity in what the teacher is looking for in the diagrams. For instance, in the Van de Graaff hair raising experiment, many different keywords were identified initially, but this list did not really capture what the students were supposed to do in relation to their level of understanding. Instead of looking for the key words, it is best to look for key science concepts and examine how these concepts are represented in the entire diagram. In the Van de Graaff experiment, after multiple iterations, three key concepts were identified as shown in Table 1 .

During and after the lesson

The big picture.

While analyzing a diagram, it is important to look for the key concepts that were previously identified in the diagram. For instance, based on Table 1, teachers would want to look for how students are representing distribution of charges, flow of charges, and forces between charges. Doing this gives a general idea of what concepts are represented and what concepts are missing. Then look at the details of how students are representing their diagrams. If there are any good ideas or alternative concepts, take note of this and look for the ideas or concepts in other diagrams. After analyzing multiple diagrams, go back to the diagram and try to verify the earlier interpretation and see if it is still valid or not.

In Figure 2 , we can see that the student has shown the key concepts—distribution of charges, flow of charge, and forces between charges. The student has captured the key concepts and has a good understanding of the content.

A student’s diagram that shows comprehensive understanding of the experiment (by Student #21).

Zoom in and out

After getting an overall idea of the concepts represented in the diagram, it is important to go through every part of diagram in detail. This task enables a teacher to see the coherence and consistencies in the diagram. A student may show scientific understanding of a concept in one instance but make mistakes or display misunderstanding in another instance. For example, in Figure 3 , charge distribution in the first three frames is correct. However, in the last frame, the student has shown the person’s hair positively charged but fallen back to normal. As the student did not show the flow of charges from the ground to the body after touching the ground, it is not clear how she understood the flow of charges or the charge distribution concept. However, the student is aware of the insulator stopping the flow of electrons.

Another student’s diagram displaying some inconsistencies (by Student #18).

Overview of all the diagrams of the class

The other reason for zooming in and out is that while it is important to look at an individual diagram, it would be good to have a view of the broad picture of what all the diagrams of the class show. From this broad picture, we can see the common weaknesses and strengths of the class or of the taught lesson. In the Van de Graaff experiment, the most common weakness is representing the flow of charges. Many students are aware that charges flow, but the type of charge that flows or the reason that makes the charges flow is not very clear to them, with more than 65% of the students having made some form of mistakes in representing the concept related to the flow of charge.

Use of representational conventions

Diagrammatic conventions, such as labels, arrows, captions, and text boxes, are considered helpful in interpreting diagrams ( McTigue and Flowers 2011 ). Figure 2 shows good use of conventions and organization making it easier to interpret. For each diagram, all the charges are shown to be enclosed in a circle. Arrows are used for labeling, to show the direction of flow of charge, and to show hair falling back in place. Though used for different purposes, the purpose of each arrow is clear. All the text is associated with an object in the diagram either by using arrows, proximity, or through inclusion (enclosed within the object).

Also read the written text

Students’ diagrams combined with written explanations tend to capture the concept better than that diagrams without written text. Some concepts are difficult to draw, especially for students with limited diagrammatic representational skills or experiences. It is important for students to develop these skills, but before acquiring them, students will naturally use written explanation that has been part of their prior learning. It is therefore important for teachers to read the written text in the diagram to see what the student is trying to express. For example, in the second frame of Figure 3, the direction of flow of electrons upon touching the dome is not shown. However, this is clearly reflected in the written explanation.

Scrutinize the diagram multiple times

It is necessary to “read” the students’ diagrams multiple times and from different angles to understand what students attempted to represent and how. It enables the teacher to see additional information, connections, and links between different parts of the object, which were missed in the earlier viewing. An example of this is the initial reading of the diagram in Figure 2. In the last frame the student showed positively charged (not neutral) hair falling back. However, following analysis of other diagrams, it became apparent that students tend to focus on the total number of negative and positive charges in the whole body to represent the neutralization of the body, rather than evenly spreading the charges to show neutralized hair. This led us to reevaluate the diagram, where the student in fact drew the same number of charges (four positive charges in the hair and four negative charges in the body).

Though using student-generated drawings is associated with positive science learning outcomes, there are challenges in using the strategy in the teaching and learning processes. There are many aspects to this teaching approach, such as selecting appropriate activities for drawing conceptual diagrams, and guiding students’ thinking through constructive feedback. Just as with developing the skills to evaluate student-generated diagrams, many aspects of this teaching approach demand continuous effort of reflection and practice to maximize the educational benefits. However, without trying and experimenting with the teaching approach firsthand, it will be difficult to develop the necessary skills and improve on them. Hopefully, teachers may find this short article useful and encouraging as they embark on their journey to adopt the teaching approach and make sense of student-generated science diagrams.

Sherab Tenzin ( [email protected] ) is a PhD student, Mihye Won is an associate professor, and David F. Treagust is John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University, Perth, Australia.

“Van de Graaff Generator Safety” by Flinn Scientific at: https://www.flinnsci.com/api/library/Download/55117bbd809b4730a34e5c3c2335fc31

Ainsworth, S., V. Prain, and R. Tytler. 2011. Drawing to learn in science. Science 333 (6046): 1096–1097.

Kozma, R. 2003. The material features of multiple representations and their cognitive and social affordances for science understanding. Learning and Instruction 13 (2): 205–226.

McTigue, E.M., and A.C. Flowers. 2011. Science visual literacy: Learners’ perceptions and knowledge of diagrams. The Reading Teacher 64 (8): 578–589.

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards.

Tippett, C.D. 2016. What recent research on diagrams suggests about learning with rather than learning from visual representations in science. International Journal of Science Education 38 (5): 725–746.

Assessment General Science Lesson Plans Pedagogy Physical Science Physics Research Teaching Strategies High School

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7 Van De Graaff Generator Activities

A set of activities to show how the generator works and the principles behind it.

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What Is in the Food You Eat?

In this activity, students test representative food samples for the presence of certain types of matter (nutrients). This investigation allows students to discover some of...

The Science of Spherification

Forget drinking your juice. Instead, try snacking on it! Use the steps and recipes in this food science project to transform drinks into semi-solid balls that pop in your...

Turn Milk Into Plastic

“Plastic made from milk” —that certainly sounds like something made-up. If you agree, you may be surprised to learn that in the early 20th century, milk was...

Proper Hand Washing Can Stop the Spread of Disease

People used to believe that disease was caused by miasma, a poisonous vapor which carried particles of rotting materials that caused illness. People knew that eating spoiled...

How Germs Spread

People used to think that angry gods caused disease, or that a poisonous vapor that came from rotting food or bad air caused illness. It took thousands of years for people to...

Calorimetry Lab

How does the energy content in lipids and carbohydrates differ? Energy content is the amount of heat produced by the burning of a small sample of a substance and heating...

Owl Pellet Surprise

This fun, hands-on introductory dissection is a great springboard for teaching the techniques of using a science notebook while having students engage in the...

Stream Table Investigation

Overview: Students learn about water erosion through an experimental process in which small-scale buildings are placed along a simulated riverbank to experience a range of...

Boiling by Pressure Drop

The goal of this experiment is to demonstrate that boiling is not just a function of temperature, as most people believe. Rather, it is a function of both temperature and...

How to Make Water Cycle in a Bag

https://www.mobileedproductions.com/blog/how-to-make-a-water-cycle-in-a-bag

How do Antibiotics Affect Bacteria When They are Put Together

Plan and carry out investigations: collaboratively, in a safe and ethical manner including personal impacts such as health safety, to produce data to serve as the basis...

Building a Generator

Students work individually or in pairs to follow a set of instructions and construct a mini generator which powers a Christmas light. Best done as a take-home assignment.

Conservation of Momentum with Vernier

Teacher leads a demonstration with vernier carts of different/equal mass, equipped with bumpers and magnets to demonstrate a variety of scenarios in which as both carts...

3rd Law with Vernier

After learning about the 1st law of motion, students partake in a teacher-led series of questions about 2 carts, and which cart will experience a greater force. The teacher...

Gravitational Acceleration

In 2-3 person groups, students take the mass of assorted objects, then hang them from a spring scale to find their gravitational force. Using the F=ma equation, they rewrite...

Electricity and Magnetism Stations

Egg drop lab.

Students work in teams to design a container for an egg using provided materials. Students drop their containers, then analyze factors which can minimize force on the...

How Does Volvo Keep Drivers Safe?

Students watch a series of short videos explaining how cars are designed with crumple zones, airbags, and automatic braking to prevent passenger damage in a collision....

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How To : Experiment with a Van de Graaff generator

Try out this science experiment... watch this video tutorial to learn how to experiment with a Van de Graaff generator. This is purely educational, and demonstrates different techniques in using the Van de Graaff generator.

This is a collection of experiments using a Van de Graaff generator. The generator uses a belt and two rollers to build up a charge in the dome on top. The electrons will jump from the dome to reach a grounded object.

Since like charges repel one another, objects placed on top of the dome will become charged and then be repelled. This is the same machine sometimes used to make someone's hair stand up in classrooms or in science centers.

This is an easy science experiment you can do right at home.

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