Mouse Trap Car

The Mouse Trap Car project was the first project we did where partners were not randomly assigned. By being able to choose your partner I found that it was easier to get right to work. Each group had the first day to just research an brainstorm ideas. Our final product looked very similar to the original plan, but there was a big part missing. When Kaj and I first started out we wanted to have a base that was open down the middle that way the sting could attach to the middle of the axle. We also wanted to put a sting on the front end of the car as well; we were hoping that this string would would, instead of getting uncoiled, would coil around the front axle making it stop was there was no sting left. As we went through that project we found that we could make the car stop just by changing the length of the sting that was getting uncoiled. Through trial and error we found how long the sting needed to be and our car ended up stopping at an average of 3 cm away from on target (left, right, forward and back,)

One hiccup that we had during the project was that during the trial and error to find the right sting length we kept changing the type of sting without thinking. The negative to this was that each sting had a different diameter and therefore had the ability to wrap around the axle differently. Once e figured this out a stuck to the same rope it got a lot easier. We also learned that by having the car more structurally sound it improved the efficiency of the car. I used the accessing and analyzing information rubric because I had to research the best way to make the car originally.