Mousetrap Car Physics

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For our final project in physics we were assigned to create a moving car out of a mousetrap. In order to do that, the three of us had to work together and collect our thoughts to create a car that moves a certain length. We built a car using the following materials: mousetrap, 4 CDs, zip ties, BBQ skewers, straw, wire cutters, ruler, x-acto blade, scissors, cardboard, pencil and foam. Our first step in this experiment was deciding on what we needed to get and what we already had. Most of the list was stuff that we had in the classroom and we only needed to bring a few things from home. In the end we didn’t spend any money. We use a youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVNFxlEMWvw&feature=youtu.be) as a refrence for building the …show more content…

The first one we used was Converting potential energy to kinetic energy. The Mousetrap is a example of converting potential energy to kinetic energy. The spring of the mousetrap is held back with a bunch of potential energy and once released, snaps forward in a burst of kinetic energy. Releasing the axle also releases the spring, converting potential energy into kinetic energy. The spring pulls the ribbon and unwinds it from the front axle, making the axle spin and pull the rest of the car along. The second concept we used was Newton's First Law which is an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. The way we used this law in our presentation was that whenever the car wasn’t moving, it was at rest. Whenever the car was in motion it stayed in motion until forces started to act on it and slow it down. Therefore friction was our third concept. The force that slows down the car. And lastly we used momentum. When the string is released and the car starts moving it has more momentum at the beginning than it has near the end when friction starts to happen and slow the car down. It has a change in

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