March 23, 2007
 

Jake Baddeley is an artist who came up with a novel use for the kit, counter-rotating turbines driven by the heat from a candle!  Here's what he said:

It works brilliantly. I had trouble with the pen set up, but when I tried the turbine, the extra surface area and associated wind resistance completely stopped the vibrations.  The wider the disk, the stabler it became.  By placing a few neodyniums above the electromagnet  and a wider hanging magnet, I found I could get more weight to be carried. It is now stable enough to spin at a reasonable rate, due to the candle underneath, with turbines spinning in opposite directions.  Still a more powerful version would be better, as I could then have more room for creativity with the levitating unit.  It takes some getting used to watching this thing hang in mid air.  Another thing that would be better is of course a larger gap length, which I understand is not possible, at least with this set up.  All in all I am very pleased.

See Jake's artwork on his web site: http://jakebaddeley.com/

September 26, 2005
 

Rick Hoadley (aka Magnet Man)has designed an add-on circuit for my kit that damps the oscillations.  Scroll down his web page a bit to see his very detailed description of theory and practice.  This is a very clever solution that specifically addresses my kit.

March 15, 2004
 

Adam Kumpf is another MIT student who was assigned the project based on my kit. 

March 9, 2004
 

Barney Arntz in New Jersey submitted this design.  He made some changes like putting the sensor below a second magnet on the bottom of the levitated object and he designed a circuit that damps vertical oscillations.
You can download his detailed project that includes images and schematic:  Levitator.pdf (Acrobat 217K)
Barney is an experienced electronic engineering consultant specializing in RF applications, here's his web site: Arntz Design

January 7, 2004
 

Dinesh Khatri built this for a class project at MIT on feedback systems.
He and his classmates were assigned to build a version of my design, then come up with a variety of improvements.  Dinesh explored ways to damp the vertical oscillations using simple circuits between the sensor and fan chip.