Night Elf Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 Is anyone familiar with this project? Dd needs one for physics class and it has to go 25 feet which I think is absolutely ridiculous. The farthest she's gotten it is 6 feet. If you are familiar with this, can you please give me some advice on how to make it go? We've got the string on the spring part of the trap and the other end of the string is attached to the axel, which is a bic pen. We feel the string isn't getting traction. We've tried roughing the pen casing with sandpaper and that helped a little. This is so hard to explain but we're really stumped. The wheels are cds and we've mounted the mousetrap on a lightweight piece of board. If you can give any advice, we'd greatly appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clementine Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 We had to put rubber bands around the outside of the cd's to get some grip. Our contest was on a tile floor & without the rubber, the cd's spun too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted December 1, 2015 Author Share Posted December 1, 2015 We had to put rubber bands around the outside of the cd's to get some grip. Our contest was on a tile floor & without the rubber, the cd's spun too much. Do you think that would work better than a balloon? We cut a strip of balloon and stretched it around the cd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Elf Posted December 2, 2015 Author Share Posted December 2, 2015 Just an update. We got it to work! We shortened the string and hot glued the wheels onto the axels so they couldn't spin freely in the holes. It went 20 feet. That's close enough to the 25 feet requirement. If she can do that at school, she'll get a 4 out of 5 on that requirement. She's so happy! This project was stressing her out so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clementine Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 Oh - that would be even thinner - it might be better. We didn't think of that. Also, we made the spring loaded arm of the mousetrap longer using a dowel or pencil - it's been a few years, I can't remember much. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne in ABQ Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 If you google mousetrap car, you'll get lots and lots of ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.