Progress in Mousetrap Car Friday, February 21st 2014

Calculate both the spring potential energy of your car and the kinetic energy demonstrated by your trial. Can you support your answer with hard data?

The Potential Energy of our car is .072J.

P.E.= (distance/pi*r)(Avg. Force)

P.E.= (.16m)(.45 Kg m^2/s^2)

P.E.= .072J

The Kinetic Energy of our car is .0438J

Mass: 87.6g = 87.6/1000= .0876kg

K.E.= 1/2mv^2

K.E.= 1/2(.0876)(1^2)

K.E.= .0438J

Compare the spring potential energy of your mousetrap car to the highest value of kinetic energy obtained.  Does it make sense?  Why or why not?  How do you know?  Can you support your answer with hard data?

The data that we found does make sense. The reason why is because only .0438 J of the potential energy transferred to kinetic energy and that is shown through how fast our car goes. Our car travels at 1.14 m/s, showing the little amount of kinetic energy that went into the car.

Do an analysis of the values of potential and kinetic energy, and offer specific physics principles to explain your results.  Does it make sense?  Why or why not?  How do you know?  Can you support your answer with hard data?

What problems related to friction did you encounter and how did you solve them?

We found that our wheels did not have enough traction so we taped the surface of our wheels to create more friction. With more friction, the wheels did not skid when we released the trap and the car traveled forward.

What were the most challenging design problems you encountered in building your mousetrap car and what physics concepts did you use to solve them?

The main problem we found was not enough traction in our wheels so we used tape to create friction. We also needed to more force to make our car go faster. We used a lever arm however it fell off every time we launched our trap from too much force. We eventually took that off.