Porcupine Magnet/ Paper Clip Holder/ Paper Weight

I was thinking about what to write about for my next blog topic when I saw this little porcupine thing on my desk. It's pretty cute and I'm not quite sure whether it's meant to be a magnet, a paper clip holder, a paper weight, or all of the above, but it definitely involves physics! I started playing around with the paper clips and the magnetic porcupine and this resulted in the structure in the picture. I realized that it relates to the last chapter about electromagnetism. The paper clips gain a charge when in contact with the magnetic porcupine because the opposite charges attract. The charge is transferred to other adjacent paper clips, creating the structure above (which took a lot of patience...). The forces in this structure had to stay in equilibrium so that I could take the picture. The downward force of weight on the hanging paper clip must be equal to the magnetic force holding it up. Also, there are torque forces (rFsintheta) acting on part of the structure (where the paper clips are halfway overlapped). The torque forces in both directions must be equal for the system to maintain equilibrium.