Monday, October 31, 2011

Mouse Trap Car -Flora Lee

-Introduction

 We will make a Mouse Trap car which moves by the force of trap. When we put our hands off from the trap, thread which is connected to the trap will pull the wheel, then wheel will start to spin and finally the car will move.Through out the process of making car, we will learn what elements (such as friction, weight, size, the length of thread..etc).influence on the car's motion. By measuring the distance and time when Mouse Trap did work, we can calculate the velocity, acceleration and the force. Based on the data we got, we can critically think, what kind of law was applied in Mouse trap's motion and how we can make the car more fast or go farther distance.

-Ingredients
   Mouse Trap, Thread, Sticks, CDs for back wheels, Water bottle cap for front wheels, Fabric tapes, Wood pieces, Fire flame decoration tape, Tar for glue,  Card board for Body, Cute little Sponge Bob.
 -
Hypothesis
 Mouse Trap Car will go forward by the force of Mouse Trap as it flip back. And the car will keep moving froward after it ran out the force.

-Who, what, when, where you worked on the project.

Me, Flora Lee worked with my partner, You-shin Kim. On October 20, we had our first meeting to discuss and combine our idea. On Friday, October 21st we made a outline: what ingredients we will use, how we can get those, when, who will do what part of work. After we divied up the work, we started look for the ingredient from our enviornmnet to not use the store product as much as we can. And finally we begined to build a structure. Our house was in two different cities, so we tried to do most of work in school :during lunch, or in the morning, or after school. You-shin drew a draft and I cut and put pieces together and we tried again and again untill finding the greatest way,

-Your design successes and failure

 It was successful. We planed the ration of wheel and body, the structure of wheel and all car's design really thoroughly. And the outside design :adorable mini sponge bob driving the fire car was pretty creative because there was no group who decorated a car.

-Relevat things you discovered in the process of creating your design

  - We wrapped around the edge of CD by fabric tape, so it can make little bit of friction which will make wheels go straight forwards without sliding quppyly.
-We put the wood pieces between two CDs and attached together , so it can be really stable. Instead of using one thick wheel, we used two thin CDs with gap because thick one wheel make two much friction and it can be too heavy.
- We used appropriate length of thread because if is too long the mouse trap will not able to pull the thread well, and if it is too short, we will not able to use all force from mouse trap.
- We used really strong tar bond to attach wheels and central stick together, and when we attach thread and trap stick together. I thought it is really importand to make those stick well,  because if wheels and sttick does not spin smoothly and quickly at once, it will hamper the car's moving.
- We made the center stick smooth by using sand paper, so it can spin really flexibily.
- We made the wheel bigger than the body part, because if we give more weight to the wheel it will move better than make the big and heavy body with little wheel. If body is too big, it will make lots of friction.
- We made the car incline to the forward (higher back side. big wheel in the back and small whell  for front.) So the Mouse Trap Car's weight can contribute to pull the car to the front.

-How you chose to apply the various laws of physics were learning in ass right now.
I think, Newton's first law was applied. I could observe that Mouse Trap Car was still running after it ran out the force. This motion explained the inertia, characteristic of product which want to keep one's motion. So, the car stopped later even though the mouse trap fliped back before.

-Conclusion
Mouse Trap Car moved forward by using the force from mouse trap. Fliping of trap pulled the thread and it made the stick and wheels spin. After the mouse trap fliped back all the way, it still ran more distance because of the inertia according to Newton's first law.

-Data Chart


Ist Run
2nd Run
Displacement(exhausted mousetrap)
4.2M
4.4M
Time (exhausted mousetrap)
4 sec
4.6 sec
Displacement (time)
10.3M
10.6M
Time (total)
12s
13.22s
Mass of car in Kg
0.212
0.212
Calculate Mad Velocity
4.8
5.55
Calculate Average Acceration
0.40
0.42
Calculate averafe deceleration
-0.11
-0.08
Calculate force and coefficient of friction
F= 0.023 mk=0.05
F= 0.017 mk=0.01
Calculate the spring’s applied force
0.085
0.089
Calculate work done
8.76
9.434
Calculate the power generated
1.9
2.1


Picture during the process. Kim has more pictures and video for our project.

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