Mousetrap Car
For the past 2 weeks my partner Luck and I have been working continuously on our car trying to figure out what we can do to make it work and how we are going to manage our time finishing it.
Time: 4.38 seconds
Place: 1st
Newtons laws lays a major role in the performance of the car.
- In Newton's First law he states, "An object at rest or in motion will stay at rest or in motion unless affected by an outside force". When the string was set up and launched, our car would continue to move even after the rotation of the axis was over, this related to Newton's 1st law.
- In Newton's Second law is ( a = F/m), so acceleration is proportionate to the force and inversely proportionate to the mass. In the mousetrap car how heavy the car was played a major role as if it was heavier the acceleration would decrease as it is inversely proportional.
- Newton's Third law states that "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" Relating this to the car, the when the wheels are pushing on the ground the ground pushes back making the car launch forward.
The wheels of the car relied on friction so that all the rotation would be applied to the ground rather than the car turning in place because of the lack of friction on the wheels, Luck and I started with wooden wheels which had little friction, so the car started to skid on the ground and never caught friction on the ground. We replaced the wooden wheels with a discs that had rubber on the edges so that it increases the friction.
We started with small wheels which rotated extremely fast as it had a low rotational inertia, when we changed to big wheels, the car moved slower because it had a greater rotational inertia, but managed to cover the same amount of distance than the small wheels. As we increased the size of the back wheels, the discs had greater rotational inertia as it had a greater circumference, but also increased the rotational velocity as one rotation in this bigger wheel covered more distance than the smaller wooden wheel. So the bigger wheels finally made my car cover more distance and reach the finish line, and with our efficient structure we managed to get the fastest time.
When the trap in the car is pulled back potential energy is stored and as soon as the trap is set the potential energy in converted into Kinetic Energy making the car move forward. We cannot calculate the potential energy of the spring as the car looses lots of its potential energy to friction from the wheels and the axis or the friction from the ground, we also do not have the proper equipment to measure them. There is also no work done as the direction in which the spring is releasing is not parallel with the direction the car is moving.
Reflection:
The final design of our car changed dramatically from the original design, we planned on having the same size wooden wheels, but due to the car having no grip on the ground and just skidding while staying stationary, we decided to get bigger back wheels and have more grip on them, so that is why we switched the wooden wheels with discs that had rubber on its outside for grip. In the future I would be more careful in building my body and axis so they are not bent to one side, as our car was moving not in a straight line but at a curved direction which was frustrating, so if we had our car built so that it would not curve, we would have had a greater velocity.
We started with small wheels which rotated extremely fast as it had a low rotational inertia, when we changed to big wheels, the car moved slower because it had a greater rotational inertia, but managed to cover the same amount of distance than the small wheels. As we increased the size of the back wheels, the discs had greater rotational inertia as it had a greater circumference, but also increased the rotational velocity as one rotation in this bigger wheel covered more distance than the smaller wooden wheel. So the bigger wheels finally made my car cover more distance and reach the finish line, and with our efficient structure we managed to get the fastest time.
When the trap in the car is pulled back potential energy is stored and as soon as the trap is set the potential energy in converted into Kinetic Energy making the car move forward. We cannot calculate the potential energy of the spring as the car looses lots of its potential energy to friction from the wheels and the axis or the friction from the ground, we also do not have the proper equipment to measure them. There is also no work done as the direction in which the spring is releasing is not parallel with the direction the car is moving.
Reflection:
The final design of our car changed dramatically from the original design, we planned on having the same size wooden wheels, but due to the car having no grip on the ground and just skidding while staying stationary, we decided to get bigger back wheels and have more grip on them, so that is why we switched the wooden wheels with discs that had rubber on its outside for grip. In the future I would be more careful in building my body and axis so they are not bent to one side, as our car was moving not in a straight line but at a curved direction which was frustrating, so if we had our car built so that it would not curve, we would have had a greater velocity.
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