Diary Entry #2: One Victory and One Failure

Dear Diary, 

Today in class we began the process of constructing our mousetrap car. We had some successes and some failures. 

Our Victory: 

• Getting the majority of our car done was a big success for us. We didn't think that it would take us a short amount of time to put together most of it. We were really content with our progress at the end of the period.

Our Failure:

• Noticing that the front wheels couldn't be the same size as our back wheels was kind of annoying because that's how we had planned for it to happen and it was our fault for not catching that earlier. We struggled to find an object that could become our front wheels until we decided to use cardboard, which is probably the best decision for us at this point.

At this point, we have come to realize that having failures and successes is common when it comes to a project like this. As we progress, we will continue to overcome our obstacles.

Phase 2: Construction

 In class today, we began assembling our mousetrap. Below are pictures of different elements of our mousetrap car in progress.

A CD for a wheel (a rubber band is taped around the edge to increase traction).

The mousetrap "engine" hot-glued to the cardboard body.

We screwed four eye hooks into the cardboard to hold the axels/wheels and the body together.

The body with the back wheels and axel attached to the body

(This was the model we had at the end of class). 

This video is showing the two back wheels moving as Kalina pushes it. During class today, we did not get to the point where the wheels could move using the mousetrap's potential energy because we haven't attached string to the snapper arm and axel yet.

Going forward, we will cut the two front wheels out of cardboard, and then attach the dowels and the wheels to the body. We also will need to harness the potential energy of the mousetrap by tying string around the snapper arm and the back axel, leaving extra string so that the snapper arm can be bent back and the string could be wound around the dowel, as mentioned earlier.