How the electroscope works (Group 1)

In this essay, we are going to explain how our electroscope works. The materials used were the following: a glass jar, a plastic lid, copper wire, a cork, aluminiun foil and a balloon.

Firstly, we made a hole in the centre of the plastic lid to put the copper wire through. With the help of pliers, we removed the plastic coating at the top and bottom of the wire. Then, we cut two pieces of aluminiun foil and we put them on the bottom of the copper wire, which had been previously modified to have the form of a hook. Later, we put the cork on top of the glass jar and finally, we applied electrical tape on both sides of the lid to place correctly the cork.

When we finished making our electroscope, we used a balloon that was rubbed against our heads to create friction. When it came in contact with the peeled piece of the wire (on top), the pieces of aluminiun foil moved apart. This happens because the electrostatic energy runs through the wire and it changes the aluminiun foil, meaning they repel themselves. But one thing we noticed is that when the energy ceases, the aluminium returns to its natural state.

In conclusion, in this project we learnt all about static electricity and the different electrical charges that the materials own, for example, the balloon has negative charge that goes down, while human hair has positive charge that goes up. Therefore, this explains why some materials repel each other (electric charge polarity) when the balloon is near, but never touching, a conductive material, like copper. This involves the induction process of charging.