Roman Haberstock

Miss Goodwin

Conceptual Physics

April 5, 2018

Mousetrap Car

The mousetrap car relates to Newton’s three laws of motion. The first law states “Every

object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external

force is applied to it.” The force exerted by the back axel helps set the mousetrap car into motion.

The second law states “The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the

applied force F is F = ma.” My car had a relatively small mass, but it had a great acceleration.

When it first went off, it started fast and slowly lost its speed. The third law states “For every

action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The pole/lever acting on the back axel is the

action, and the axel acting on the pole/lever is the reaction.

The conservation of energy also applies to my mousetrap car. The conservation of energy

states that the total energy of an isolated system remains consistent. Energy can change forms,

but it never leaves the system. The energy was conserved, but then the string spun the back axel

causing the car to move. When it is set into motion, it uses kinetic energy. When the energy was

stored as I was winding my car up, it used potential energy. Those two energies were the only

ones used in my car, and mechanical (the sum of potential and kinetic).

Simple machines are any of the basic mechanical devices used to apply energy. The two

main simple machines in my car are a lever and a wheel & axel. The lever is in the second class.
I used the simple machines to greatly increase the force exerted. The simple machines such as

the wheel and axel made me reconsider the wheels I used for my design. I thought the less mass

the better, so I used CD’s instead of thicker toy wheels.

I learned more about energy by doing this project. I learned the different types of energy

and what causes it. I did encounter a problem with one of the wheels. The wheel was crooked

and pointed to the right, which caused the whole car to move to the right. I did not fix it and just

started my car at the far left of the hall. That wheel was one of the weaknesses with my car, but

the strength of it was the design. The lever, wheels, and axels all worked to generate enough

speed. I would only change the one wheel, so it could go straight.