How Do You Plan Simple Experiment To See How Powerful An Elctromagnet Is?
Mark B has a good answer.I myself would suggest you get a magnetic compass,put it on a largish table with the electromagnet,say one metre apart with one poleface of the magnet east(or west )of the compass BEFORE you switch on the magnet.See if there a maximum current beyond which the increasing field causes little further deviation of the compass needle(this would need some way of controlling the current and this might be difficult for you) .By varying the number of coils you would get the same effect as changing the current but there will come a point where increasing the number of coils will not make much more difference to the magnetic field at the compass,at this point the iron core is saturated with magnetism.The whole experiment would be better if an iron rod,rather than a horseshoe shape,was used.
