Day 72 - Build a Mousetrap Powered Car

Date: March 19th, 2010

In what is going to go down as one of the all time sweetest things a father has done for a daughter, my dad arrived back from Lansing (he and my mother had gone there for the afternoon to take care of a few things) with two bags filled with project materials for me.  It was a huge lifesaver - I'd been at my parent's house every day that whole week so I was running out of little at home things to do.

One of the things in those bags of tricks was a mousetrap powered car.  It struck me that the real benefit of putting it together wasn't having a new model car (since I'd already made one of those), but rather to see how that whole mousetrap thing actually worked.  That being said, putting it together wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done by a long shot.  The kit had a real mousetrap (like, honest to goodness, cheese goes here, kind of mousetrap).  It was a little intimidating.

You don't scare me.

Immediately it became clear that this kit was a little more advanced than the last car I built.  Why?  Cause step one involved wire cutters, pliers, and glue.  None of which were included.  Translation: this car is hardcore.  You need your own tools for it.  Luckily, my dad not only had the things I needed, he had them in the most badass way possible.  I got a pair of pliers that had a built in wire cutter and glue from a hot glue gun.  Concerns about burnt fingers are for nerds and squares.

Pictured: Toys for babies.

That pile of stuff eventually became the car.  But as I mentioned, the neat part was not that I built another car (nor would that count as a thing I'd never done before).  The neat part was that the car was propelled by the mousetrap.  Mousetraps have a very tightly wound spring in the middle of them (which you probably already know unless you're a tree-hugging hippie).  That spring is use for the significantly less gruesome purpose of moving the car forward in this experiment.

Pictured: Tension

See that metal arm sticking up from the top of the car?  Usually that points directly backward from the car.  I wound it for your viewing pleasure -- see, its connected by a strong piece of thread to the front axle and then wound completely forward.  When released the car jumps forward like a roller coaster, rumbling up to speeds of 30 MPH or higher, scaring dogs and impressing women.

That's a lie... it moves really slowly.  Its cute, actually.  It gets up to 1MPH, maybe, on carpet.  On hardwood its wheels spin out of control and it doesn't move.  As in, at all.  Which, quite frankly, I find even cuter.  This project has ruined cute for me.  Seriously.

Silly rabbit.  You mean nothing to me.

So cute!  Look at the wittle stwing.

In the meantime, the physics of the mousetrap powered car are seriously cool.  I didn't honestly understand how it would work until halfway through.  Then I got one of those little epiphany moments and got all excited.  I spent the rest of the evening launching it across the living room carpet.  And yes, the little mousetrap car that could did manage to scare my dogs.  Though, that's not all that hard to do at the end of the day.