Chengwen Guo

Mrs. Goodwin

Physics

April 6, 2018

Mouse trap race car write up

Mouse Trap race car is a good project for student to practice their

Hands-on ability and the Proficiency of the physics learning.

In order to make the car move you have to converse the force the mouse

trap have to the energy the car can move. The solution I have is to use a

line, tie it on the mouse trap.

But there are many problems with it such as the force the mouse trap

provide is too large, the car cannot run long enough and so on.

According to the newton second law more weight, then it needs more

force to accelerate it. Then so if the object is too heavy then it’s hard to

accelerate it

The newton 3rd law said when an object is moving that it must have a

force act at the opposite direction. Then the force is the friction it will slow

the car down and it will stop the car so we also need decrease the friction

to make the car able to run further and faster.

At first I was planning to use a ball bearing to reduce the friction, but

due to I cannot find that much of ball bearing I choose to use the paper clip,

to duce the friction although it’s not as well as the ball bearing but it can
still reduce large amount of friction.

Conservation of energy.

The energy that the load mouse trap is large, but the time of the force

to apply is also really shot. So the key is to make the car have perfect

ratio between the speed and the distance.

My solution is to find the best ratio of the speed and distance. I did

many experiment to find out the perfect ratio. At the day of the testing,

the result just like what I am expect it stop at the 5 meters and run fast

enough to have the enough inertia

Simple machines

I use the axle to make the racecar have a higher mechanical

advantage, so it can move much more as I except and fast enough.

Summary

It’s easy to build car it can run, but when you want wo build a car

which can run well enough to reach some goal, the you need to do many

calculation and many experiment and drawing to make sure you design

can work and it will work perfectly.

When I am building my car, there are many problem with it, such as

the force the mouse trap can provide is too large so the car cannot bear it
then it breaks, so it also needs you to try many different material to make

it stronger. But finally, I made it, this is a good project.