How it doesn't work

Some of the ingenious suggestions students made. Unfortunately they are all wrong.

• The convection of air in the enclosed case caused by the heat lamp drives the wheel with the spokes acting like sails. The hot air rises in the side of the case containing the lamp and the cooled air descends in the other side of the case hence the wheel turns anticlockwise.
  
• The heat lamp causes the spokes on one side of the wheel to heat up. These spokes are now lighter than those on the opposite side of the wheel and so the wheel turns anticlockwise.
• There is an electric motor in the hub of the wheel driven by electricity converted from light by the spokes containing solar panel material.
• There is an electric motor in the hub connected to the mains via some clever circuitry, which activates it shortly after the lamp is lit and varies the torque applied.
• The wheel is driven by photon shot pressure. The lamp is angled upwards and the photons striking the spokes impart a slight vertical momentum to that side of the wheel causing it to turn anticlockwise.
• The heat lamp causes the spokes on one side of the wheel to heat up. The increase in temperature causes these spokes to relax while those on the other side of the wheel contract to maintain equilibrium. This causes the centre of mass of the wheel to move away from the hub of the wheel in the direction of the lamp. Gravity now provides the torque required to turn the wheel; however, this should result in a clockwise rotation!