How To Build A Mousetrap Car For Speed

Shorten the lever arm.

How to build a mousetrap car for speed. Build a mousetrap car step 1. Take two eye screws and insert them at the corners of the rear end of the mousetrap. Place these eye screws at a distance of 8 mm to 1 cm from the respective corners. And a good mousetrap car means a fast mousetrap car.

Take your mousetrap and find the rod that is used to set it. Its not fun if it doesnt move as quickly as possible. There is no precise formula for how long the lever should be. Making the wheels and chassis 1.

Fashion your chassis from your heavy. This is the base of the car known as the chassis. How to make a fast mousetrap car. Thats why we have written up this little section to help you out.

Consider drilling holes in the frame and the wheels. Drill holes in nonessential components to reduce weight. There is a couple of things you can do to speed the thing up. Experiment to see how short you can get the lever while maintaining control of the car.

After that i decided to glue in another piece of wood at the front of the car. Take the 2 pieces of cardboard about 4x10 and cut a rectangular notch about 1x2 in the center. Installing a shorter lever arm is the best way to adapt a racer for speed. Youll need to create four wheels out of your heavy cardboard or foam core.

Attach the mousetrap to the chassis using duct tape. In this step you will prepare the assembly for installing the axles for your mousetrap car. Make the wheels for your car. Then put each corner brace where the mousetrap joins the balsa wood as shown in the last couple of pictures.

Trim the deck down so it is only as large as necessary to support the mousetrap. Cut 3 sections of straw to fit on the body of the car like in the illustration. However if the lever is too short it will spin out. When gluing down the deck put it as close to the back wheels as possible without touching them.

Mix together some jb weld and apply a generous amount to the corner braces. While inserting the eye screws take care that the wood does not split in the process. Dont cover up the spring in the middle of the trap or the snapper arm.