Mousetrap Car Plans – Which Are Best?

What was that saying on the old T.V. show, ‘The A Team’? I Love it when a plan comes together.

Every good project starts with a plan, and building a mouse trap car is no different. Sure you can grab your basic mouse trap and slap some wheels on it, but that does not necessarily make for an award-winning mouse trap car.

Best Plans Laid Are The Best Mousetrap Car Plans

There are many things you need to consider before you jump right in and start building your mouse trap car. Things to consider are:

  • Will your mouse trap car be a distance mouse trap car? (Meaning, is there a contest to see how far your mouse trap cars will go?)
  • Will your mouse trap car be built as a mousetrap racer? (Meaning, the contest is to see which mouse trap car goes the fastest)

With just these two considerations, you would build your mouse trap cars fairly different from each other. The first you want it to go as slow as possible so the energy stored will make the mouse trap car go the furthest.

With the second consideration, you want your mouse trap car to go the fastest, expending as much energy as possible to get the wheels turning and propelling the mouse trap car.

mousetrap car plans ricky racer image

Did you include these in your mousetrap car plans?

Other items you will need to consider in your plan are:

  • Are you limited to the types of materials you can use? (Some instructors give you a pre-determined list or kit, and you cannot use any outside materials)
  • Are you limited on how or what type of modifications you can make to your mouse trap car?

Once you have the answer to these and some other questions, you’ll be able to pencil out your mousetrap car plans and being the next phase – actually building your award winning mouse trap car.

Power Transmission to Axle, What’s That?

According to Wikipedia, the Power Transmission to Axle is when “the mousetrap bar travels through an arc of approximately 180 degrees. This motion must be used to turn the car’s axle or wheels. The most common solution is to attach a string to the bar and wrap it around an axle. As the bar is released, it pulls on the string, causing the axle (and wheels) to turn.

Tying the string directly to the mousetrap’s bar, however, will not make good use of the energy stored in the spring. The distance between the opened and closed positions of the bar of a mousetrap is typically 10 cm, so this is how much string would be pulled. Wrapped around even a small diameter axle, this amount of string will not create enough revolutions to move the car as far as it might go.”

If you have not completed your mousetrap car plans yet, I highly recommend the all-inclusive MouseTrap Car Plans shown on our website above, and better yet, try one of the fantastic Mouse Trap Car Kits!  Remember the “A-Team”, you’ll love it when a plan comes together, especially your Mousetrap Car Plans!

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