{"id":1382,"date":"2021-12-03T08:50:53","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T08:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/applications\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2025-03-24T10:39:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T10:39:37","slug":"make-a-levitating-lego-santa-sleigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/make-a-levitating-lego-santa-sleigh\/","title":{"rendered":"Make A Levitating Lego Santa Sleigh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Combining Lego and magnets opens up a whole world of fun and creativity; here, we will show you how to make a Christmas decoration with a difference. As well as being fun to make, it helps you learn about magnets too.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you or your children have other Lego kits, you will no doubt be able to piece together the bricks needed to create a Santa sleigh bursting with festive funk. You don\u2019t have to copy ours, there are lots of designs to be found online. Will you decide on the traditional reindeer-powered sleigh or will you upgrade Santa to jet power!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some we\u2019ve found, or you can use\u00a0Lego\u2019s free Digital Designer tool\u00a0to create your own, then order the bricks you need direct from Lego.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Lego<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"Lego<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Once you have created Santa\u2019s sleigh, you need to create the all-important track. The purpose of the track is to provide a surface to which you can apply magnets and prevent the sleigh from moving from side to side as it floats, as any degree of sideways movement will prevent it from working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We created a track that fits inside the legs of the sleigh so you can see how it works and make sure the legs of the sleigh fit snugly to the side of the track to stop any sideways movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To create the repulsion needed to float Santa\u2019s sleigh, you need magnets; more specifically, 12.5mm wide self-adhesive magnetic tape<\/a>. In our model, we applied the tape on the underside of the sleigh, running the full length. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We then placed the same tape on the track so the two magnetic faces were pointing toward each other. It is important to use the same polarity tape on both the sleigh and the track, either both polarity A or both polarity B. If you use A and B polarities together the two pieces will attract rather than repel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lego<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Lego<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How Does This Work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every magnet has at least one north pole and one south pole, if you cast your mind back to school science lessons you will recall that opposite poles attract, while identical poles repel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magnetic tape is actually magnetized with a striped polarity with a number of alternating stripes of north and south poles running the length of the tape in a north-south-north-south pattern. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When two pieces of the same tape are arranged with their identical poles aligned directly on top of each other, the two pieces of tape will repel each other sufficiently to support the weight of the sleigh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gives the appearance that the sleigh is floating and the reason you can move it up and down the length of the track without any friction!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Combining Lego and magnets opens up a whole world of fun and creativity; here, we will show you how to make a Christmas decoration with a difference. As well as being fun to make, it helps you learn about magnets too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[415,363],"tags":[364,365,32,107,369,33,252,372,7],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-application","category-craft-magnets","tag-craft-magnets","tag-craft-project","tag-diy","tag-diy-ideas","tag-diy-magnets","tag-diy-tips","tag-flexible-magnets","tag-magnetic-solutions","tag-magnets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5004,"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions\/5004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.first4magnets.com\/us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}