The energy for a mouse-trap powered cars is stored in the mouse trap spring and it drives a wheel by some arrangement such as a string connected from the trap’s jaws. There was a competition among the mechanical engineers at my University to build a mouse trap car that could travel the furthest. There were plenty of different designs. The winners had a design that released energy from the spring slowly and had only two wheels. Thanks Stuartcw! Link.
0 thoughts on “How-To make Mouse-Trap cars”
I did a mousetrap car (circa 1993) that had a 2 LPs for rear wheels and a little plastic front wheel. The body was a “Y” shaped peice of 1/4″ foam core. I contructed the axles from small copper tubes with R/C car bearings and 1/8″ alluminum axles.
The point is, you need to store all the energy of the mousetrap in the inertia of the drive train because the mouse trap is designed as a sudden burst of energy. It comes down to the highest mass that the trap can move with the lowest rolling resistance.
If this is still a graded thing, email me and I’ll draw up the winning plans.
I had to make one of these for tech ed last year excpt my front whels were 1in
okay, so just out of curiousity, does anyone know that the best way to do this is with only two wheels. Use the axle as the ballance for the trap, and put some sort of weight on the bottom. this is flawless.
I would like to get some winning plans on how to make a mousetrap car. Preferably ones that use CD’s for wheels. Can anyone help me?
I am doing a mouse trap car as a project in school and could use some help so if anyone has ideas on how to build a distance car pleasse email me at wes_wsmn@hotmail.com
Im making one in tech class and we have a week to build it n its hard i need some ideas to make one w/b ASAP!!!!
Im making one in tech class and we have a week to build it n its hard i need some ideas to make one w/b ASAP!!!!
Could you please send me the winning plans?
i hate mousetraps
we have to make these in tech ed. we are only in 7th grade
i made a mouse trap car and it works perfectly but the only problem is that i tryed to make the mouse trap car move with string and by putting the string around the axle so when i let go it would move but it does
nt work the string just doent move and i have no clue on how to make this mouse trap move and it looks like the same one at the top of this page
can someone please HELP!!! i have no clue on what to do
we are making one that has to go one meter than launch a ball into a garbage can. I have no clue what to do HELP!!!
My son is having to make on of the mousetrap cars for his 8th grade science class. We are having a hard time finding plans for one of these. If anyone has any plans PLEASE forward them to me.
we know how to make this mousetrap car at union city high school and we know how to make it work. you guys are stupid if you can’t figure this out. i’m saying that 10th grade honors physical science can figure this stuff out, so stop boo-hooing that this stuff is too hard. suck it up and stop crying.
ur only in 7th grade wow it must b hard 4 u…
GET OVER IT IM IN 6TH GRADE AND HAV 2 MAKE 3
ur only in 7th grade wow it must b hard 4 u…
GET OVER IT IM IN 6TH GRADE AND HAV 2 MAKE 3
This is insane…… they are simple…… wind the axle with string and use to mouse trap to pull it…. thats a basic plan……….
This is insane…… they are simple…… wind the axle with string and use to mouse trap to pull it…. thats a basic plan……….
i am so lost in making this. sure it may be simple, but NOT for me heh someone please help me – my email is getshortyrb@aol.com i’d appreciate some help! thanks in advance!
-Rachel
Well, this is USELESS!
it worked thanks!