Post 1: Mousetrap Vehicle

I think the most critical components to incorporate into the vehicle would be a light and stable chassis. If the chassis isn't light that could cause too much friction but if it's too light then it might break. I think another critical component would be too make sure there is friction with the wheels and the ground but not too much friction. There also needs to be friction with the wheels and the axel but if there is too much the wheels won't turn very well. You need to make sure everything is just right so that the vehicle will perform it's best.

Reflection

There was many things that went well for our team during our mousetrap vehicle experience. The main thing was that we had a lot of fun, even though our vehicle didn't work as well as we had planned. I think during the drag race, our vehicle did very well. We didn't win but our vehicle went the really far and it also went fairly fast. Also, each time we tested our vehicle it went a metre farther so that helped our average. I think as a group, we learned a lot. When we started, none of us knew how we could actually make it move or even how to build one. We also learned some problem solving skills and how to cooperate with team members.

Some future recommendations to help other racers, would be to make sure everything is attached well. The hot glue we used didn't work very well and the pipe holders kept falling off and our mousetrap even fell off. I think that if you want to use hot glue, make sure you use enough or just drill the mousetrap on so it stays on better. Also, to make your vehicle work better, make sure that the string is tight enough so that it goes farther. Most of the time we didn't have the string tight enough so the vehicle would only go two or three metres.  I think if everyone was positive about everyone else's vehicles and didn't put each other down, the activity would go much better.

Race Day

On race day our mousetrap vehicle didn't go as far as it had the other times we tested it. It only went 2, 3 and 4 metres but on the weekend it went at least 6 metres. However when our vehicle competed in the drag race, we didn't win, but our vehicle went quite a bit farther than it had when we were testing it for distance.

If we could modify our vehicle, we probably would have used screws to attach the mousetrap instead of glue. This is because right during our practice run, the mousetrap came off. I think we also would have used something different to attach the axels to the chassis because the wheels moved too much with the pipe holders that we used.

If we could design a completely different car, I think we would have used something a bit lighter for the chassis and toy wheels with an axle already attached so it works a bit better. We probably also would have attached the axle way differently because the pipe holders we used didn't work very well.

To make our vehicle perform better, we should have tightened the string a bit more and made sure that the wheels were more straight so that the vehicle didn't turn as much.

Blake, Jenn, Dylan and Austin's mousetrap vehicle

 

Our vehicle in a drag race

Mousetrap Vehicle

We started our mousetrap vehicle about two weeks ago. For our vehicle we used two records for the back wheels, two CD's for the front wheels, light wood for the chassis, wooden dowels for the axels, pipe holders to attach the axel to the chassis and hot glue to attach everything together.
At first we used fish line as the string, but that was too small and it wouldn't stay wound and it would only go about two meters. We then decided to use normal white string. After we switched the string, our vehicle started to go about five meters but it turns to the left because the wheels are very straight.

Our mousetrap vehicle

Paper Tower Challenge.

Yesterday we finished our Paper Tower Challenge and my team got second.  I think the most rewarding part was building the tower because I was quite confident that it would do well. 
Our completed tower matched the original idea almost perfectly. I think to improve our tower we could have used part of the design from the team's tower that supported the most weight. The part of their design we could have used circles of paper that they had put inside the outside one circle of paper. This may have helped because it wouldn't have came apart so easily.

Agnessa, Jenn and Chris. Photo by: Mr. Bertram

 

In physics 30S, so far we have learned about static electricity. We have also made a new blog and followed all of our classmates.