Mousetrap Car Write Up

The way the mousetrap pulls the car came from docfizzix.

This website provided the information on how to use the mousetrap to make the car accelerate. I took features from a variety of cars from
Google images
and combined them to make my car.

Some special features of my car were bearings, light CD’s with elastic bands strapped around the edges (to get good traction) and a light plastic body to hold the mousetrap and axles.

Bearings are objects that allow very little friction. I knocked them on the back axle, but not on the front axle. Instead of letting the wheels spin on the axle, which has friction, bearings allow the wheels to spin while connected to the axle.

As lots of successful mousetrap cars, CD’s are very good, light wheels. Although the wheels are light and fast, they have little traction. So I solved this problem by attaching elastic bands around the edges. To keep the elastic bands on, I used double sided tape and wrapped it around the edges before I put the elastic bands on.

The body of the car was made out of a very thin, flexible and light plastic. The plastic body held the back and front axles and the mousetrap. Some people used the mousetrap as the car body, but their designs did not accelerate or go straight.

My car was quite different to most people’s cars because it had different features to other cars. Other cars were different in size, features and the way they worked. The most effective way to work the car was mounting the mousetrap on the car. This was the most common way. Other ways to power the car weren’t as successful. My car was light, well working and fast. Some cars weren’t as well planned in design. That’s why my car went the fastest to cross the finish line in all my races.

Two major aspects of my car were low friction and high traction.

Friction is the force when two objects rub against each other. When two objects rub against each other, they grind and drag against each other, causing big losses in energy and the movement of the object to slow down. If the back axle is rolling in the axle holder, it slows down the speed of the back wheels because of the friction.

Bearings, however, are friction free. They are objects that allow the axle to spin inside without friction.

Traction is the power of gripping a surface. CD’s themselves do not have good traction. The solution to the traction problem was to wrap elastic bands around the wheels. Rubber is an elastic material that has very good grip. When the wheels grip the surface, more of the stored energy from the mousetrap is transferred to the road/surface the car will have a lot more power and speed.