It may not be obvious in the earlier video (our first successful test, driving two magnets across the top of a playing surface) but one of the magnets spins quite a lot, as it is dragged along by the magnet underneath (the one that is fixed to the belt).
Clearly, we don't want our knights to be spinning around like the teacups ride at a travelling funfair - we want them to face the direction they are travelling in!
So we added a second magnet, just behind each existing magnet on the belt.
The idea is that our knight miniatures will have not one, but two, magnets in their bases. To ensure our knights miniatures are placed facing the correct direction on the board, we reversed the polarity of the rear-most magnets (so if you try to place your knight facing the wrong way around, instead of attracting to the belt, the magnets in the base will repel each other, and it will be clear that the knight has not been placed correctly on the playing surface).
So now we were ready to actually try the whole thing out - to get our knights to complete one (or more) complete circuits of the track (and hopefully keep facing the right way around, throughout!).
It'll be interesting to see how two magnets a set fixed width apart (on the miniature base) work with the magnets underneath that might change the distance between them (as they travel around curves/corners on the track). I guess there's only one way to find out - build it and give it a go!
Yay! Looking very promising!
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