Simple CD Gyroscope | English
As a heavy disc spins at a fast speed it prevents the big CD from falling. The CD GYROSCOPE stands erect and slowly spins on its point of contact. You will need 5 old CD's, Glue, scissors, 9-volt battery, switch, 9-volt toy motor etc. First mark a small circle on 4 old CDs and cut them with a scissors. Then glue these all four small CDs together to make a thick heavy disc. This will act like a flywheel. Stick two small pieces of CD on both sides to cover the big hole in the flywheel. Now drill a small hole in the center of the flywheel. Tight fit a piece of small ball pen refill in this hole.
Attach a 9-volt toy motor in series to a 9-volt battery and an ON/OFF switch. On switching ON the motor will spin. You can perhaps only hear the sound but not see the spinning motor shaft. Stick a rubber frame to an old CD. The frame will house the 9-volt battery. Fix the motor in the center of the CD with strong glue. Place the battery in its housing. Tie the switch. Then tight fit the FLYWHEEL on the motor shaft. On switching the motor the flywheel will spin very fast. Now stand the CD on a table. The CD will not fall down because of the spinning flywheel.
Why does the CD stand and not fall? The spinning flywheel acts like a GYROSCOPE. Its axis of rotation is free to assume any orientation by itself. Even if you tilt the CD it returns to its original position because of Conservation of Angular Momentum. That is why GYROSCOPES are used for maintaining orientation in Rockets and Ships.
This work is supported by IUCAA (www.iucaa.in) and TATA Trust (http://www.tatatrusts.org/) and (www.tata.com/aboutus/sub_index/Tata-trusts)
Credits:,Ashok Rupner, Manish Jain, Pradnya Pujari, Shivaji Mane, Jyoti Hiremath, Arvind Gupta, Vidula Mhaiskar TATA Trust: Education is one of the key focus areas for Tata Trusts, aiming towards enabling access of quality education to the underprivileged population in India. To facilitate quality in teaching and learning of Science education through workshops, capacity building and resource creation, Tata Trusts have been supporting Muktangan Vigyan Shodhika (MVS), IUCAA's Children’s Science Centre, since inception. To know more about other initiatives of Tata Trusts, please visit www.tatatrusts.org