When you put everything together, you get a crude Van de Graaff generator as in the above picture. Make sure the combs(end of wires) are near the belt and rollers. Make sure that when you run the thing, the belt doesn't slip off. If it does, make sure both rollers are parallel to each other. Also, try to superglue the motor to the tupperware lid.

When you first run it, to see if high voltage is produced, try taping strips of tissue paper to the can. It should start to rise seconds after the batteries are connected. If this fails, put your finger near a tissue strip. The strip of tissue paper will be attracted to your finger.

In places such as Singapore, humidity can be a real problem for electrostatic experiments. I work in an air condition room to overcome this problem.

You can get sparks a few mm long from this design. Pathetic compared to the sparks you can get by sticking a piece of aluminium foil to a TV screen. But Van de Graaffs are not just used to create high voltage. They demonstrate many different principles in electrostatics that you can learn while playing with it.