Transcript Mousetrap Car Project

Mousetrap Car Project
By: Jeremiah Oghafua
Defining a Problem
The problem that I was trying to solve in this project was how
to design a mousetrap car out of common household items and
how to fashion a mousetrap car that can go at least 5 feet.
Brainstorming
Before I started the project, I tried to imagine possible
mousetrap car structures and designs.
Researching and Generating Ideas
As I brainstormed, there were several mousetrap car designs that
I looked over. In my research, I also looked at tutorials on how to
build certain mousetrap cars. These tutorials served as a
reference to my design. I used sites such as these for inspiration:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Mouse-Trap-car/
Identifying Criteria and Specifying
Constraints
The criteria of the mousetrap car required that the mousetrap
car that I built must be capable of moving at least 5 feet. The
constraints that I was working under was that the materials I
could use were:
•6 pipe cleaners
•2 boards of binder cardboard
•4 CD discs
•1 Mousetrap car
•Yarn
•A little bit of hot glue
•6 rubber bands
•A small paintbrush
•2 balloons
•8 barbecue cabob sticks
Exploring Possibilities
I explored my possibilities by sketching out preliminary
designs in my sketchbook. I drew a total of 3 preliminary
sketches. In one design, I considered the board of the
mousetrap car being made of wood and the hooks for the
axle being metal hooks. In another design, I considered
not using a long handle to unwind the string on the
mousetrap car. Instead, I thought about making handle of
the trap itself function as the unwinding part of the string.
Selecting an Approach
After looking over the preliminary sketches, I made a final
sketch in my engineering journal and decided to follow that
design. The design required that the mousetrap car should be
constructed without a handle, the CDs function as wheels and
they each have tires. Also the design included that board/base
of the vehicle being fashioned like that of a go-cart.
Developing a Design Proposal
For the design setup I used the final
sketch from my engineering journal.
When I constructed the prototype/model of the actual
vehicle, I instead had a trial and error session seeing
which areas of the mousetrap car needed adjustment.
Making a Model or Prototype
Refine the Design
The trial and error session that I had for the vehicle model revealed
that the mousetrap car could not propel itself forward by the trap’s
handle alone. The model/trial and error also revealed that the two of
the wheels did not require tires. Therefore I only added two balloons
as tires for two of the wheels.
Create it
After refinement of the
prototype, I built the
mousetrap car. I cut out a
piece of cardboard from an
old binder to serve as the
base of the vehicle. I
twisted 4 pipe cleaners
around the board to act as
the axle hooks. I cut and
taped together 2 pairs of 4
barbeque cabob sticks to
form the axles. The wheels
were made from the CDs.
The rubber bands were used to hold the wheels around the axles. A
paint brush was attached to the mouse trap car handle to act as the
unwinding lever. String was attached to the paint brush and the
string was tied around the back axle.
Communicate Results
After testing the mousetrap car, the results were satisfactory. The
mousetrap car was able to travel around 7 to 13 feet at a speed of
about 1.42ft/s.
Distance Table
Trial 1
13 ft
Trial 2
8ft
Trial 3
10ft
Speed Tables(Speed=Distance/Time)
Distance
Time
Calculated
Speed
Trial 1
5 ft
3.33 s
1.5 ft/s
Trial 2
5 ft
4s
1.25 ft/s
Trial 3
5 ft
3.36 s
1.5 ft/s
Average Speed: approximately 1.42 ft/s
Distance
Time
Time: 10 ft5 ft
Calculated
Speed
Trial 1
10 ft
6.67 s
6.67s3.33s=3.33s
0
Trial 2
10 ft
8s
8s-4s= 4s
0
Trial 3
10 ft
6.7 s
6.7s3.36s=3.34s
0
Average Time 10ft-5ft: 4.9s
Acceleration of 5ft=0.13ft/s
Acceleration of 10ft=0.1ft/s
Average Speed 10ft-5ft: est. 1.42 ft/s