Achievements
"Brainiac" Brainstorm solutions for your design. Generate a list of at least 10 ideas/concepts.
1. Use no more than 30 parts/pieces.
2. Make the design compact and functional.
3. Use no more than 2 axles.
4. Take the power from the lever on the mousetrap and use it to turn the axles and wheels.5. Build the design without the use of any tape.
6. Only use the twine to power the axles and wheels.
7. Make the structure stable.
8. Build without the use of heavy pieces.
9. Try and go for speed rather than distance.
10. Make the design compatible with the lever and the wheel/axle system.
"Visualize it" Create a sketch of the design and label key features.
 |
| Just in case it is not clear, this sketch is the version that we had in mind before we decided to lengthen the chassis. It is not to proportion, since we had not built it yet and hadn't gauged the pieces accordingly; but this was our initial image of the car. The duct tape was another unclear part of these images - it goes around the pencil and the arm of the mouse trap lever a couple of times, so that is what the cut off for those lines indicate in all the pictures. The mouse trap is hard to see as well, but it is actually lower than the axle for the wheels in the picture. The twine loops around the axle in the front of the design, and that is the explanation for all the smaller lines on the axle in the front there. |
 |
As far as the rear view goes, it is the same thing all over. The pencil is actually behind the lever arm on the rear view because of the amount of tension that we put on it during the competition, so that is why they pictures differ in that respect. The axle of the rear view doesn't have any twine attached to it because it was not needed at the time, so that is why it is blank. |
 |
By "top view," I mean bird's eye view. The front and the back view are labeled on the sides so that you can make the distinction. The car works where the pencil eraser begins over the wrapped twine on the front side of the chassis, and we wind it up more and more until the tension is adequate for the race. Once it is ready, you let the lever snap forward, slowly releasing the tension, rolling the car in the correct direction and getting some distance for the car on the course. |
"Build it" Build your design and document it with a photo.
 |
| Initial Design |
Our (final) car pricing:
(x4) wheels
(x2) axles
(x6) yellow pieces
(x21) red pieces
(x3) twine
(x1) mousetrap
(x1) tape
TOTAL: 38 pieces, or $38.00
TOTAL: (w/out mousetrap) 37 pieces, or $37.00
"Competitor" Compete in the 2nd Annual Mousetrap Racecar Challenge.
We competed in the 2nd Annual Mousetrap Racecar Challenge.
"Feedback" Collect feedback (at least one each of +, change, ? and !) from yourself or your classmates.
+ The compacted-ness of the design was good - it really adds a level of speed to the overall progress of the car. It made the design more lightweight and gave it the ability to progress the course quickly. In that way, the chassis would not weigh itself down and make the friction a lot higher than the acceptable deviations we were initially aiming for.
^ Something to change would be the twine issue of the axle/wheel and lever system. The twine kept getting wound around itself because the release of tension was too quick, and the grip of the string was not great enough. Ironically enough, we could not tie the twine down, because the car would brake on it's own and be unable to finish the course. Try the slipknot or another method.
? Why use the little red pieces? Wouldn't that add to the total cost, despite their size? Why did you choose 5 as the quantity that you used?
! The initial design is good, but the problem is that a lot of the pieces kind of slip really easily. The chassis was mostly stable, but try to look for ways that would give less room for a disaster while on the course.
"Re-work" Change your build based on your experience with the race/feedback you collected. Document any changes.
Based on the experience and feedback from Mr. Olsen and other classmates, we changed our design by adding a pencil to the arm of the lever to make the chassis functional. Every time we attempted to race, the twine would wind itself up and wasn't tight enough to get the car going, and we couldn't tie it off without causing it to brake on it's own - which would make the calculation for acceleration that much more difficult. It worked at first, but after experimentation, for some reason, it was no longer reproducible in the lab. So the solution was that we change the factor involving the arm of the lever, which was done by taping a pencil to one side and tying off a piece of twine at the top to make the distance greater. In light of that, we didn't realize that the pencil would not work without elongating the design to function with the lever properly. Knowing that, we increased the length of the chassis, and it worked like it was supposed to (though not as well as it did initially) and it was successful in making the minimum amount of distance to cover."Game Changer" Develop a new rule or change to the game that you feel would make the event better. Explain your concept.
A new rule that would change the game that would make the event better would be a rule that allows only a certain number of parts and pieces.
The concept of this rule would bring about the real world situations of the game. If you had to build something like this, chances are, you probably wouldn't have an unlimited amount of parts and pieces with which to build. Many people like to slap on as many pieces that they can to improve the design because they can. With the limitations of this rule, it would bring about some interesting and new designs that would have to be compatible with the rule that would really get people thinking about how realistic their design is or how they could change it for the better.
"Name it" Invent a name for an achievement that you think is better than what we have currently.
"The Price of Glory" could be changed to "You break it, you buy it." Also, the "Build it" challenge could be changed to "From the ground up."
"Leave It Cleaner Than You Found It" Did you leave your workspace cleaner than you found it? Explain.
Our workspace was definitely cleaner than we found it. There were a lot of loose pieces just laying around our space, and we usually come to class with it like that. So, we had to straighten it up before we began, and overall the table was clean and tidy by the time we left every single day after the event.
"Design/Build" What is a "Design/Build" process? How did your experience with this challenge relate to that? Why might you experience this in a career related to technical innovation?
The "Design/Build" process is the way of going about the construction of a chassis, building, or other project; in this case, the race car. The way we went about doing it was we brainstormed and came up with ideas before we started building, and then pointed out things we should focus on. By doing this, we were able to get the easy problems out of the way before they came into light on the design when it was finished. Once we built it, we were able to easily focus more and more on the increasingly difficult issues that did not corrolate with the ones we found in the first part of the process. We were able to revise, refine, and re-work the design to our advantage, and got it back into working order with all the documentation done and ready to post. The experience of the system in our small activity may relate to a career in technical innovation because it is the same basic process of going about the design/build of a chassis, building, or other project. I am sure that the documentation in a job or workplace is much more complicated than taking a few picture and posting them to a blog, but it is practically the same thing that we did over the course of these past couple days.
