Small Magnets
My lab now has 25 small magnets that are magnetized across the diameter, as you can see in the photo to the right. 
Diametrically magnetized cylindrical magnets configured into a smiley face designThe magnets are for use in my capsule endoscope project, but they may just become toys because we've nearly decided we want to use smaller magnets with different shapes. By way of attracting along the diameter instead of along the axis like typical cylindrical magnets, they can make some pretty cool designs. We should have bought 100 just to take neat photos.
My favorite thing to do with them today was line them up next to each other and put each end on a magnetic surface so that the loop of magnets looks sort of like a noose. In this configuration, I could tap them from any direction, and the whole magnetic link would wobble a bit and then settle down. It looks pretty cool, anyway!
In other news, my mastery of sausage-making led to a party this past Saturday, and while I have lots of pictures of making the sausages, I don't have any pictures of the actual party, where people delighted in eating them for about four hours! I made 29 sausages of six different varieties. I'll write about them at some point... really.
Comments
I'm glad things are going well for you up Pittsburgh way. In the picture, is that a magnet smiley-face? It kind of looks like it. What are the six different varieties of sausages that you made?
Posted by: arc | September 20, 2006 09:07 PM