Teaching Minds-On Experiments on Electromagnetism in Secondary Schools

Permanent magnets
Chaotic magnetic pendulum

The platform of this toy is divided into six areas describing six different situations in a game of football: scoring a goal, a penalty kick, a corner, a foul, a throw-in and off-side. There is a magnet hidden under each area and there is also one in the ball. The bottom pole of the ball and the top poles of the platform are of the same sign. The ball avoids stopping above any of the areas.
The movements of the ball over the magnets is absolutely chaotic. Sometimes you get the impression that the ball is going to stop above one of the areas, and that it is suddenly attracted to another area. Theoretically, it cannot be foreseen where the ball is going to stop. Even a small change of the initial ball position leads to a different result, which is a characteristic feature of the chaotic movement.
A different version of the magnetic pendulum. The movement of it depends on many factors, like the friction (it can be enhanced if the pendulum is submerged in a liquid), the gravity force (which changes the relative direction if the vertical positioning of the pendulum changes), the attracting or repelling force of magnets (different magnets have slightly different strengths and configurations so they never act with exactly the same force).