Mousetrap-Powered Car

1069 Words3 Pages

A mousetrap-powered car is a vehicle that powers up and moves by the energy of a wound-up mousetrap’s spring. Its main components are the mousetrap, long metal rod, and the fishing line. In order to make the car work, the rod was wounded-up (wrapped) around the fishing line that had one end attached to the drive axle and the other end to the arm of the mousetrap, which pulls the snapper's lever arm closer to the drive axle. When the arms were released, the tension of the spring pulled the string off the axle. As a result, the fishing line string unraveled, causing the axle and the wheels to rotate, propelling the vehicle. There are various forms of energy that are involved with this car. First, it started off as potential (stored) energy that came from when the mousetrap was set by wounding the spring around the axle by the turning of the wheels, which caused the snapper’s lever arm to pull closer to the drive axle and the spring in the center was compressed. Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, when the trap was released, most of the potential energy converted into kinetic (motion) energy, propelling the snapper arm forward. However, not all of the energy was converted into kinetic energy, as some of it was lost to the force of friction. Friction helped to spin the wheels and progress the car forward as when the string was pulled, friction between it and the axle caused the axle to rotate. In addition, the outside forces of friction caused the car to slow down and eventually come to a stop. Since energy cannot be destroyed, when the car came to a stop, the friction converted into thermal and heat energy.
The Baseline data is essential to be collected in order to measure how much the change and modification of t...

... middle of paper ...

...a or wanted to test or try something, an opportunity was given to do so. It was decided that everyone was to participate evenly, which was done through the division of jobs, depending on that person’s experience and knowledge upon that specific field. For example, someone might have been in charge of the assembling of parts through gluing while another may have been nailing a screw. In the beginning, and even throughout the assembly of the car, it was a struggle to know exactly what order of steps were required to achieve something (for example, how to successful nail the screw into the piece of wood) but it was much easier to overcome these problems as everyone remained calm and engaged in discussions; this meant that everyone had to take responsibility for their learning by thinking more critically and suggesting ideas or methods of improvement with full honesty.

Open Document