Tr4p L0rdz

Felipe Luna 

3/27/15

Physics 

P.7

INTRO

Mousetraps. Those suckers hurt when you get your fingers caught in them. Don't even get me started on rat traps. Jesus. Bad experiences....
But, what if there was actually more to these 25 cent pieces of wood with coiled metal stapled to them; a sort of POWER that could be harnessed from it? Well, we experimented with that in Mr. Yav's 7th period physics class and the results were quite interesting. The purpose of this experiment was to bring a bunch of people together and help them bond over the construction of a mousetrap car and live happily ever after. I'm kidding. The purpose of this experiment was to explain how momentum, friction, and all these different forces go hand-in-hand with the construction of our very own car powered by a single mousetrap.

DESIGN

For the design of the car itself, we had many different ideas to begin with. Initially after watching the cars from Mr. Yav's previous classes, we had decided we wanted a car with a steamroller type of approach, because in the videos it was simply unstoppable. All other cars would cower before its might and succumb to the Quaker oats tin can we thought of attaching to the front axle. 

Unfortunately, due to some bad planning, our first car ran sort of like something that can be best described as "a box of gravy with wheels." Last minute planning contributed to this minimalist effort and we feared our grade would suffer from it.

Blank cds: $1.50

Mousetrap: $0.25

Bic Pen axle: $0.25
Nail: $0.00
Water Bottle: $1.50

Reactions to a bad grade: priceless

As a result of this unfortunate mishap, we decided to take it upon ourselves to design a new car, so over the following weekend, I decided to make a checklist of things we needed for the car.
This included:
1 Hobby board for the chassis: $15.00
2 wooden rectangle stick things: $5.00 x 2
4 Victor Mousetraps: $1.00
2 8-inch metal rods: $2.00 x 2
String: $2.00
4 plastic cart wheels: $5.00
and
1 Wooden dowel: $5.00
It put quite a dent in my wallet, but the fun of building the car itself was worth it.

All the materials were ready for use.

CONSTRUCTION

• To begin, I began to saw everything up and cut it down to size.

• After taking measurements of everything i began to piece it together without attaching anything, in order to get an idea of what I wanted the car to look like:
  
  
  

• The measurements were probably the most painstaking part of the ordeal, because even the smallest mistake could jeopardize the whole car
• After cutting the wood to size and finally finishing all of the measurements, I began to attach the parts:
  
• Then I realized I had to paint the darn thing. Shoot.

• After finishing the painting and greasing the axles with WD-40 (the paint added friction to the axle-holes), I attached the mousetrap with wood glue and a clamp, as well as cut part of the wooden dowel to act as a lever for the rear axle to get more spin on it.
  

• When constructing the Battle Car, i simply cut the remaining slab of hobby board I had in half and drilled two holes into it, one on top of the other. The two holes were so that I could insert the metal rods into the holes at an angle so the slab of wood would act as a ramp. The most difficult part of this was ensuring that the car would go down a ramp of 45 degrees or less without catching on and possibly flipping over.
  
  
  
  

VOILA

OPERATION OF CAR 

• The thing that was so cool about the mousetrap car was that it was powered by a single mousetrap and could accelerate at a decent rate. 
• Our car traveled 2 meters in 2.35 seconds, going at an average speed of 0.85 meters per second
• When we attached a rod to the arms of the mousetrap, we did this so the mousetrap would
• A. Distribute the work evenly over a period of time
• B. Attached an arm to both sides of the mousetrap so the force would not be exerted into bending the top of the arm of the mousetrap
• C. It looked pretty cool
• We added cut-up balloon snippets to the wheels so the wheels would have friction.
• With the wheels being plastic, we concluded that it would be more difficult to get the car rolling, since there was less of a friction coefficient with plastic on a smooth surface versus rubber.
• During Joust Day, we needed to ensure the kinetic energy and the speed of the car would remain constant. With this, we tried to reduce the friction of the axle holes so they would not rub against the axle, slowing the speed of the car down and ensuring the ramp on the front of the car would work to its full effect.
• The constant momentum of the car--assuming it didn't slow down-- would ensure that the car would prevail over its victims. Also because the car was so much cooler than the others as well.

RESULTS

• After the first race day, our prototype gravy-box car went a mere 0.20 meters. Sad, I know :(
• After construction of the new car, it went 2 meters in 2.35 seconds, traveling at a speed of 0.85 meters per second
• During the "march madness" jousting bracket tournament, our car proudly finished second.
• In our opinion, it should have finished first because our opponents' egg in the championship broke. But, the rules stated whichever car went to the bottom of the ramp first, regardless of whether both eggs fell out and/or one broke, won.
• So, we got second. Still not a bad finish