The mouse trap car

The Mousetrap Race Car

  The mousetrap car is a vehicle as in which the power source is a mousetrap and its spring shutting system. The car can and only have one mousetrap and can measure its proficiency by its distance or speed. The vehicle is mostly built upon trial and error with many prototypes to build and add upon each one to make the best it can be.

 

The Mousetraps history

The first mousetrap was invented by a British inventor named James Henry Atkinson. In 1897, the first prototype was named the "Little Nipper".  The trap could shut at 38,000s of a second. It was made of the basic wooden platform, the actual spring and wire fasteners. Although the most generic look to a mousetrap is wood and has a metal piece to shut, there were many different types of traps that actually worked better and was much more efficient than the original. There are big box like traps and plastic, more technological and stronger traps that replaced the original and became more efficient and effective.

 

The Different Types of Cars

Each prototype that was made was either to make the car fast, or to make it go far. There is no car that has both speed and distance because factors will use one method to accelerate at a quick rate or accelerate slowly but go far along the ground. Each one can use different materials, different system, or different body structure. 

 

For Distance

To maximize distance, the car must have things in mind:

• Weight/materials
• Body structure/size
• Wheels 
• Use glue

These few factors can change the distance from 10m to 50m. Each little ounce can change greatly as well. To start, the weight of the car will mostly slow the car down and keep it going as far as it can and so materials must be light to do this. The body structure is important because you want the car to be aerodynamic and to reduce drag. To do this the size must be narrow and thin. It will let it cut through the air like a arrow. Furthermore, the wheels are important because you want back wheels to be large. The reasoning to this is that larger wheels accelerate slowly (not for speed) but will spin better and spin for a longer time compared to smaller wheels. Finally, glue is a contributing factor because it is lighter than tape and nails and can hold things together strongly. All these factors are to make the car go for a long distance and may or may not effect the speed of the car. For different types, some cars may go very slowly but go far, or start off fast and then slow down. Each car is different.

 

Speed

To maximize speed, many factors are the same for distance but instead wanting a better ratio of time over distance compared to just the distance. These factors are:

• Weight/materials
• Use Glue 
• Back wheels to rear axle ratio
• Short lever arms

The cars factors are to make a faster car, so these factors each have a reason why. To make a car, a light weight is universal. The materials should be light and the it should not be massive (not a lot of mass). Next, glue is very light pertaining to the light materials and sticks together very well. To add, the back wheel to rear axle ratio is that the back wheels should be as small as possible and the axle should be large. This is because larger wheels do not accelerate that well but go for distance instead. So smaller wheels are the best fit. But these wheels should be thin and friction-less. Lastly, the lever arms should be shortened because the if the power from the mouse trap is released all at once, the speed will increase greatly. 

Things to watch for to make sure your car does the best it can

 

Normally, a car would need to be as light as it can be to move quickly. It should be small but durable and glue will be necessary. Furthermore, things like inertia and friction are key ideas to watch for. Inertia is the resistance to change in motion. It includes speed and direction. So in this case, it is the resistance to change in speed. From no motion to motion, things like weight can slow the change of motion, causing a

slower car. Even more, friction is a big thing to watch. Friction can cause the car to slow down drastically and even to stop the car. The wheels are the biggest target for friction. Judging by the wheels the car can be fast or slow. Things like CD's make great wheels because they are thin causing less friction but light making them very effective. But wheels like bottle caps or wood wheels may not be as effective do to their weight and their thickness. Their weight can drag the speed down or even cause drag slowing the car down by air resistance and it being thick creating lots of friction slowing the vehicle down and not going as far as it should be.

 

Final Tips

 Upon making the car, things to look for are the forces around you to slow down the car. These can be taking your speed down by a lot. So make sure you are trying to cause no friction and making the body light and easy to move. Also make sure there are nothing holding the car down and lose all unnecessary weight. Keep the vehicles size based on either distance or speed. Distance is to be long and thin with large back wheels and small front wheels. And speed as small equally small wheels. To conclude, if you follow these tips and use trial and error, you car should be the best it can be.