Mouse Trap Car Research Paper

The Purpose of our Mouse Trap Car project was to find a way to use what we have learned from Physics and Newton's laws to make a mousetrap powered car. We had a goal to create a car out of material you already had that goes 3 or more meters across the room. We had to find a way to get all the parts and build it with nothing but glue and tape and whatever you had in you house. This challenged involved many aspects such as building/engineering, time management, focus, and most importantly science.
For our mouse trap car we used many materials. We used cardboard, a mouse trap, tape, glue, CD’s, bottle caps, straws, skewers, and a long wooden stick for our project. Before starting the project we researched other mousetrap car that have worked in the past. We found out for more distance and speed we have to have a killbar extension. This is how we use the wooden stick. The reason this did so was because of the killbar the string would be more and faster so the axle would spin faster moving the wheels. The faster the wheels spin the faster the car would go.
Our project required our car to go at least 3 meters. Our initial trials were successful because our car went 7,8, and then 9 meters. The car went 7 meters in 8 seconds with a speed of 0.875 m/s. It went 8 meters in 10 seconds with a speed of 0.8 m/s. It finally went 9 meters in 12
It is what makes the wheel spin instead of just to slide on the ground. If there were to be no friction such as ice the wheels would not spin and the whole car would just slide on the ice. With all the friction the car could not move at all. With the right amount of friction which we had to apply to the car the wheels will move and the car will go at a fast constant speed. This way we used friction in the right amount and it helped our mouse trap car go the distance and meet the requirement of one set of free spinning wheels. This is how friction is used in the mouse trap