ok, magnets were fine
| N..............| | N..............|
therefore there is a south pole in the middle, and makes a nice little magnetic field.
1. the coils were NOT connected to the commutator
2. there was NO power supply
3. the coil was wound around the armature 25 times in one direction, then it was reversed and wound around 25 times in the other direction. the resultant torque from both sides of the armature is zero as they act in opposite directions.
/// <- these are windings
|\\\\\\\\\\____//////////| thats what it looked like, well, but hand drawn
so each side of the armature opposes the other
edit: hmm, the power supply one seems a bit iffy, and retrospectively i think that the commutator was pi/2 out of phase from the coils.