Paul and I came up with the concept for our mousetrap car after watching many videos on youtube. Many people claimed to have the best mousetrap cars, but we used our knowledge of physics to help us figure out which one we thought we needed to use. The part that was the deciding factor was actually what type of wheels the cars used. Some had holes in them, some were big, and some were small. Knowing what we know about rotational inertia, we knew we had to use a solid wheel.
The wheels will have rubber bands wrapped around them in order to achieve more friction, so that they will grip the floor. Which means that when the mouse trap gets the wheels rotating they won't do any excess spinning without moving. One of our main points of emphasis was to make everything as simple as possible, so that we could reduce the amount of error possible. We are planning on using the normal lever-arm of the mousetrap. Also we are going to use smaller wheels on the front of the car to reduce the mass and create less rotational inertia. Since this race is about speed and not distance, we must be able to achieve as much acceleration as possible, which is why we are using things like the rubber bands and smaller wheels
Materials
Materials provided by Mrs. Lawrence
Rubber Bands -- Goes on the wheels
Paint Sticks -- Used to put wheels on
Kebab Stick -- Axis of the car
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