Mouse Trap Race Car

In my engineering class, my group (Matt, Brooke, and I) was given a task to build a vehicle that runs solely on the power a mousetrap generates with its spring. My group was named "XC Normandy" because we all took part of cross country and Mass Effect is such a great videogame series, we had to make the reference.

Mr. Olsen, our engineering teacher, gave us the following criteria, contsraints, and challenges:

Criteria:Design, build and compete with a Mousetrap Racecar (A "car" uses at least two axles).
Maintain a clean workspace.

Constraints:
One mousetrap
No more than 12" of masking tape
Fischertechnique robotics parts
No more than 24" of string
All materials used must travel with your vehicle
You must work through the stages of the event (see Achievements below)
Additional materials by Instructor approval



Achievements (by stage):
Post your results for the Simple Machine Challenge pt I to your blog. Tally your total number of Achievements earned and justify each within the post. Your grade is the total number of Achievements you earn curved against the number of Achievements your classmates earn.


Design Stage:
"Brainiac" - Brainstorm solutions for your design. Generate a list of at least 10 ideas/concepts.
"Visualize It!" - Create a sketch of a design and label key features.


Build Stage:
"Build It" - Build your design. Document it with a photo.
"The Price of Glory" - If each part you use costs $1, generate a total cost for your build (This info will be used to generate "cost" data to add a pricing element to the game next year).

Test (Compete) Stage:
Each car will compete in two events. Generate your design accordingly.
1) The Distance Event: Compete for the furthest distance. Teams will race one at a time and have up to 3 attempts to achieve the longest distance. We will race on the tiles of the classroom unless the class decides we need more space. Your best result will be marked with a piece of masking tape. The marked location is where the car comes to rest (cars have been known to roll back at times!).
2) The Acceleration Event: Cars will compete head to head in a competitive bracket. The winner of each duel will move on to the next round. The course is 24" long.
At first, our mouse trap car was designed to be very "cheap" and light so it would accelerate really fast. It consisted of a short wheelbase and two simple wheel and axle systems. However, we thoght have a string for each axle would make the car run faster and with more traction, like a 4-wheel drive car. After construcing the chasis of the vehicle, which included the axles, we realized that the car would not be rigid enough to survive a run through and the axles were too loose. After our first failure (fail early, fail often. Aren't I right?) we came up with some more ideas which we eventually trashed or combined.

(Our ideas seemed pretty creative and ideal, but the reality of the world shot our ideas out of the sky)

After several reconstructions and modifications, we finally arrived to the final product:

The XC NORMANDY achieved the longest distance travelled in our period and was the second fasted accelerator as well. It took a total of fifty pieces and met all the criteria and constraints. It traveled a total of 20.5ft for the distance event. We did not time the acceleration event, so our 2ft time was not recorded.

The following awards that Mr. Olsen created were then applied to our car:

"Competitor" - Compete in the 2nd Annual Mousetrap Racecar Challenge.
"Long Distance Winner!" - Travel the furthest in the distance race.
"Going the Mile!" - Travel the furthest or second furthest in the distance race.
"Heavy Foot" - Be the team to win or finish second in the acceleration bracket.
"Feedback" - Collect feedback (at least one each of +, change, ? and !) from yourself or your classmates.
"Re-work" - Change your build based on your experience with the race/feedback you collected. Document any changes.
After our clean up stage was completed, our working area was free of any engineering tools and trash.
This amounts to a total of 11 achievements for this project in Principles of Engineering.