Essay On Mousetrap Car

Mousetrap cars come in many different forms. Some are made of wood, while others are made out of LEGO bricks. No matter the material, mousetrap cars are affected by the same things. Mousetrap cars are dependant on such things as leverage, both linear and rotational; the amount of friction working on the car; the amount of kinetic energy available for the car’s use; and the momentum of the car.
Each car had to have some sort of lever in order for it to be able to move. The Kidz Bop Car had two lever arms crossed at the top in order for the string to be centered on the car. Each dowel stick was about .16 meters long. The equation for torque is where the lever arm came into play. Torque is equal to force times the lever arm length. This equation is basically saying that how much the wheels will turn is determined by how long the lever arm is, and how much force the lever arm will exert. There is also torque when it comes to the wheels. When calculating the wheel’s torque, the radius of the wheels serves as the lever arm, and the force of the lever arm with the wheel’s force. This means that the larger the radius of the wheels, or the greater the force of the wheels, the bigger the torque will be. There was a warning issued by Mr. Kunz at the beginning of the project, telling us not to “dry fire” the mousetrap. Torque is …show more content…
Leverage helps to determine how much torque the car will have. Friction is generally avoided when building a mousetrap car, however some friction was needed between the car’s wheels and the carpet. The kinetic energy is the amount of energy that the car has available for use. Momentum was the extra push of speed that got the car to go a little farther. These concepts, though shown on a small and far less complicated scale, are very similar, if not the same, to the ones used in the cars on the road

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