| The ball shown at near right is a ping-pong ball coated in colloidal graphite. When brought near a charged Van de Graff generator, both the initially neutral ball and the pop cans will be attracted to the generator due to induction. | |
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Once allowed to touch, they will be strongly repelled by the generator. They will also be attracted to a nearby grounded sphere, again through induction. Noisy games of ping-pong and kick the can be played if the Van de Graaff is left on and the grounded sphere is close enough.