Mousetrap Car
Analysis
Questions
How did your car perform? Explain the aspects of your car that made it function well. What are some areas of improvement for your car? Explain how it could have been made better so that the car could have performed better.
During its test, my mousetrap car curved to the right causing it to crash into a wall and stop short of its full potential. However, the car still traveled the the entirety of the 11 meters required for the maximum number of points.
The reasons that my mousetrap car functioned as well as it did were: (1) the light and thin CD’s that I used as wheels minimized the friction between the car and the ground, causing the car to go a greater distance as opposed to the distance thick, heavy wheels would go. (2) The balloons that were wrapped around the wheels created traction and prevented the the wheels from slipping on the …show more content…
This is because, since all of the potential energy was converted into kinetic energy and the kinetic energy has yet to be fully converted into thermal energy, the velocity of the mousetrap car is at its highest. Since thermal energy is not at its maximum at this point, the car wants to move at a constant velocity.
Explain all the aspects in which friction helped your car perform to its optimal capabilities and all the aspects in which friction may have prevented your car from the performing to its optimal capabilities
Friction can both help and hinder a mousetrap car. Friction that creates thermal energy negatively affects the distance of a mousetrap car by reducing the total amount of kinetic energy. However, friction also creates traction which prevents the wheels from slipping on the floor, causing a loss of energy which would have resulted in a shorter distance
What are all the ways you could have modified your car from the list of variables so that your car would be able to travel further?
Questions
How did your car perform? Explain the aspects of your car that made it function well. What are some areas of improvement for your car? Explain how it could have been made better so that the car could have performed better.
During its test, my mousetrap car curved to the right causing it to crash into a wall and stop short of its full potential. However, the car still traveled the the entirety of the 11 meters required for the maximum number of points.
The reasons that my mousetrap car functioned as well as it did were: (1) the light and thin CD’s that I used as wheels minimized the friction between the car and the ground, causing the car to go a greater distance as opposed to the distance thick, heavy wheels would go. (2) The balloons that were wrapped around the wheels created traction and prevented the the wheels from slipping on the …show more content…
This is because, since all of the potential energy was converted into kinetic energy and the kinetic energy has yet to be fully converted into thermal energy, the velocity of the mousetrap car is at its highest. Since thermal energy is not at its maximum at this point, the car wants to move at a constant velocity.
Explain all the aspects in which friction helped your car perform to its optimal capabilities and all the aspects in which friction may have prevented your car from the performing to its optimal capabilities
Friction can both help and hinder a mousetrap car. Friction that creates thermal energy negatively affects the distance of a mousetrap car by reducing the total amount of kinetic energy. However, friction also creates traction which prevents the wheels from slipping on the floor, causing a loss of energy which would have resulted in a shorter distance
What are all the ways you could have modified your car from the list of variables so that your car would be able to travel further?