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This will be used to "attach" to our axle and power the car. For the last few steps we will start by hot gluing the mousetrap mechanism to the top of the body of the car. Step 2Make the sketch pens into hollow plastic cylinders by pulling the front and the back out of them. Then, what you need to do is taking the balloons, cut their top and bottom off.
Step 6: Prepare the Mousetrap Mechanism // Dowel
Tie a string very tightly to the snapper arm on the mouse trap. The string should be long enough to just reach to the back axle. Cut the wooden dowel so you have two pieces that are both about two inches longer than the width of the chassis. Cut a piece of strong cardboard so that it is slightly larger (about 1/2″) than the mousetrap on every side. Having a light bodied mouse trap car allows for less work to have to be done by the mousetrap getting the car going.
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Step 10: Ideas for Maximizing Distance
The wheels can be off-the-shelf radio-controlled car wheels, but many builders use blank CDs or DVDs because their thin edges reduce friction. Making your mousetrap better probably involves optimizing it for whatever your goal is. In general, mousetrap competitions have two categories, speed and distance. If you want to optimize for speed, you’ll want to design a car that exerts as much force/rotation as possible on the wheels as fast as possible. This will likely mean a shorter pull rod on the mousetrap and wheels that have a lot of grip so they don’t spin in place when they are rotated quickly. The underlying principle of mousetrap cars is mechanical advantage.
Science Fans, Embrace the Challenge of Cool DIY Projects
One more important concept to think about when selecting wheels for your speed-trap racer is traction. Some times wheel traction can be increased by adding traction treads cut from the center of a rubber balloon (see adding traction treads for more information). Try to copy the design of a top fuel dragster when building a super-fast speed-trap racer. By changing the size of the drive wheel(s) you can speed-up or slow-down your mousetrap vehicle. Larger drive wheels have a greater travel distance per each turn than smaller drive wheel. It would make sense to use a super huge drive wheel so for each turn of this massive wheel the mousetrap vehicle will travel a super huge distance.
Apart from design influences, Mr. Pelly also sees the computer and entertainment industries helping bring new technology into play as well. Be sure to include a list of what you think the advantages and disadvantages of each design are. The Goal of this assignment is to generate ideas for the project.
The string is tied to the tip of an arm that is attached to a drive axle by a string. As the string is wound around the axle, the lever arm on the mousetrap is pulled and the spring is wound, thus storing energy in the spring. When the drive wheels are released, the string is unwound from the axle which causes the mousetrap car to move. Friction is the force that acts against the motion of all moving objects. We cannot eliminate friction totally but we can try to reduce it as much as possible. As a general rule of thumb, the more moving parts a device has the greater the force of friction acting against the system.
I ran a guided lab where I demonstrated how students could conduct a 3 point bend test on the chassis design. The students were given the following basic CAD of a mousetrap design and instructed on how to do a static 3 point bend test. Finally we are going to attach a zip tie to the rear axle to give a attachment point for the sting.
Attach the Wheels
The stored potential energy in the spring of the mousetrap's snapper arm transforms into the kinetic energy that propels a car that you will make. But to create your own rodent roadster, you'll need the right materials, an understanding of a few physical principles, and a little effort. When the lever arm is pulled all the way back the torque will be the greatest. That is good because the car needs the extra force as it starts to move to overcome the opposing force of inertia (Newton’s First Law). This is potential energy with the lever arm pulled back as the mousetrap car moves this converts into kinetic energy. The force from the wound spring will decrease as the lever moves towards the opposite position from the start.
Chuck Pelly, founder of Designworks/USA, says that the entertainment, computer and fashion industries help make California a leader when it comes to vehicle design. His studio, wholly owned by BMW since 1995, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1997, making him one of the originators of the idea that California could be a design center. Mr. Pelly is not at liberty to discuss exactly what his studio has done recently, but does admit that "we enjoyed our heavy involvement" in the upcoming new 3-Series BMW. You will be creating a website to capture the design process you went through for the project and highlight the hard work your team has done.
Rober visits his friend, the world record holder for mouse trap car distance, to find out how he does it. The cars physics are all about mechanical advantage, the trade off between how long it takes to do something and how little force is required to do it. In the case of mouse trap cars, that means that the slower the car goes, the farther it can travel.
Wrap a small rubber band around the axle on either side of each wheel so the wheels can’t fall off. Make sure that the axles are straight and that there is room for them to spin in the eye hooks. Screw the eye hooks onto the bottom of the cardboard chassis, one in each corner. Use a ruler to make sure that the eye hooks are aligned with each other. Give your wheels some traction by stretching large rubber bands around each wheel. For the small wheels, you could also try using a section of a balloon.
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