No. Of course you need a magnet if you don't want to build a more complicated self-excitation design (building that would be quite the feat given the circumstan

No. Of course you need a magnet if you don't want to build a more complicated self-excitation design (building that would be quite the feat given the circumstances) or want to use a smaller dynamo to bootstrap an electromagnetic dynamo or even alternator. But it's better to start with a magnet and stick to easy-to-debug stuff that can be eyeballed start to finish.