The Van der Graaff Generator

Charged Up

Static Electricity

How it Works:

When you turn on the Van der Graaff Generator, the rubber band starts moving and rubs against the metal roller at the bottom, collecting positive charges.  These positive charges go up to the metal dome at the top, so the metal is positively charged.
(See the diagram below)

We put our hands near the dome and we saw a spark of electricity go from the dome to our hands. We heard a crackle when the spark moved.  This happened because the dome was full of positive charges and they jumped to us and travelled through our bodies and back down to earth.

When I put my hand on the dome, I was standing on a few layers of polystyrene to stop the electricity flowing down to earth and my hair started to stand up on end.  My hair stood up because each individual hair became positively charged and started to repel all the other hairs.

by Sebastiano

What Happened...

We put our hand on top of the Van der Graaff generator and switched it on.  As soon as we put our hand on top of it we got a small electric shock and all the positives charges had travelled onto our body and hair. All the positive charges in the Van der Graaff generator came through our bodies.  Our hairs all stood up because they wanted to be as far as possible from each other and because two positive charges repel.  If we stop touching the generator and touch the floor (or something connected to the floor) our hair goes down as normal, because we don’t have the positive charges in our body anymore.

by Teodora

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