Make A Mousetrap Car
When you've been given the project to build a mousetrap car, there are basically 4 things to consider before you dive right in and start building. A typical mousetrap car project generally will take the form of one or combination of the following methods:
1. Basic mousetrap car / limited materials
2. Basic mousetrap car / no limitation on materials
3. Speed mousetrap car / with or without limitations on materials
4. Distance mousetrap car/ with or without limitations on materials
Once you know which category your project falls, you are ready to begin building your prize-winning mousetrap car. Some instructors use building the mousetrap car as an exercise in physics, while other professors use it as a project in engineering and design of consumer products, taking into account the emphasis on purpose (usefulness), functional performance (product usability), process (manufacture), and styling possibilities (product desirability). Whether a junior high student or a university student, this activity can challenge even the most seasoned industrial designers.
The mousetrap car is a familiar project among many students. Fascinated with the resourcefulness of junior high students who often build and race these unlikely toys for "Science Olympiad," it has even been introduced at the University of Notre Dame by Professor Paul Down, associate professor of Industrial Design. He used the project and introduced it to his entry-level industrial design students for product design.
The basic project is to design a mouse trap car using very basic materials, often provided by the instructor or professor, where the central component is the classic, household wooden mouse trap (probably a 50 cent part, or less. After the design and construction phase, there is a period of testing where empirical data is collected. Students are asked to comment about their mouse trap cars. They often have ideas for ways of improving performance, like cutting weight, reducing friction, altering spool size, and changing lever ratios. Some even suggested that it would be a useful "educational toy" that could be assembled with included with various part options that would change the performance characteristics of the mouse trap car while teaching children different principles of physics. Others suggested that it would be a great youth club activity, and several students generally suggest that the cars could be made in kit form (which they are today), to ease assembly and create a more attractive toy.
In nearly all instances of the project, students are required to build a mousetrap car and race the "crude" mouse trap car before moving on to refining or redesigning. The drawing and refinement stages are always important as a means to discover and explore opportunities to construct a mousetrap car efficiently. Some instructors go as far as having their students reverse engineer other toys by encouraging students to dismantle old broken toys or worn out consumer goods, which imparts important lessons in how products are traditionally assembled.
How To Build A Mouse Trap Car
Projects like the the building a mousetrap car illustrates opportunities for instructors to explain physics and design as part of the industrial process. By demonstrating how engineering (the operational but crude racing version of the car) proposes and tests function, how marketing defines a potential consumer, and how industrial design (the finished show model) gives practical usability and desirability to an end product, students begin to understand the differing talents that work together in developing virtually all products. In an ideal commercial scenario all three groups engage the developmental process nearly from beginning to end.
In any classroom, an ideal scenario would have students identify their own interests and potentials with the mousetrap car building activity. If they don't see themselves strong in physics, engineering or industrial design, at a minimum they will at know how all of these subjects fit into a proven paradigm for product development, not to mention they have a helluva lot of fun in the process!
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