Mouse Trap car

One of my sons friends stayed over yesterday and mentioned in passing he'd been assigned to make a mouse trap car for school. I thought about how I had lots of fun making those way back and decided to make one out of scraps off my desk and document it. It's far from the best one ever and unlikely to win any awards, but it does work.

Step 1 Supplies

I used the following:

A mouse trap
4 eye hooks
6 balloons
2 bic pens (the smooth kind)
2 tops from pop cans (for the serious perhaps washers, or otherwise any other bendable metal)
some string (not pictured)
4 CDs/DVDs (expendable ones). Here 3 CDRs and a blank transparent thing from the top of a spindle. I hear DVDs are a bit lighter, but I'm not optimizing that hard.

Comments

[teh darkcloud]

Nice. I made one of these in my Engineering class a few months back. My team did pretty... bad. We got stuck with two know-it-all sophomores, a girl who was afraid of tools, another girl who just wanted to get her math homework done that she didn't do the night before, and me... the shy, quiet girl who had ideas but couldn't voice them. D: (Haha, I'm not trying to make my team look bad, by the way. We all became friends because of that project. xD)

[teh darkcloud]

Oh, also... This is what we ended up with. (The first image is my design. We tried to follow it but somehow ended up with... the second image. >.<)

[smann5]

I just put the string in the hole in the middle of the pen, then used an unrolled paper clip to pull it through.

[Joe Rous]

how far did it travel

[Joe Rous]

Just made a mouse trap car that went 33 feet 9 inches

[bergiemoore]

I really appreciate that A. you used common, easy to get materials and 2. your photos were in focus (big thank-you) and were an aid to the instructions you wrote. Thanks for the great visual tutorial. We'll be making these this summer at my Daring and Dangerous camp :)

[ultbandgeek]

Would you be willing to explain step 10? The step where he installs the back pen? please? Thank you(:

[bergiemoore]

To install the back pen, you will have predrilled (or poked (whatever) a hole and sent a thread through it. Tie a good knot in the thread to keep it from coming back out of the hole you just sent it through. Now put the pen through the two eye holes so it sits perpendicular to the wood trap in the two eye holes.
This is your back axle. After putting it into place I used a bit of hot glue in two single bars to keep the axle from slipping back out of the eye holes. The original creator used bottle top tabs. Mine were too big and hit the wood, not allowing it to spin freely so I decided to abandon the bottle tabs and use a line of hot glue.. After I got the back axle in place, I tied the string to the flip bar- the thing that will snap back in place once you let go it (the thing that originally was used to hold the little mouse down to the wood).
To make your car run after you add the wheels, hold the snap bar back and roll the back axle up so the thread is wound around the back axle. When you let the mousetrap bar go, it will fling forward and pull the back axle incredibly fast. I discovered that undoing one side of the bar so that it was actually straight on one side made it FAR less scary to use :) Check out a couple of the other mousetrap cars to see their strings attached to long poles. That is the mousetrap bar opened on one side and bent straight. So it goes from a staple shape to an "L" shape. It works just as well, but seems less likely to nip the user.
Good luck.

[ultbandgeek]

Thanks(: But the part that still confuses me is, what do we do with the string that comes out the other side (not the middle) of the cylinder ?

[bergiemoore]

You drill a little hole. You put the string through the hole so it comes out one of the ends of the pen. You tie a big ol' know in it, or tie it to a bead or something that will keep it from coming back out of the hole. Now, you pull the string again so all the string is out of the center of the pen, but it is stuck in the pen and can't come out. Once the axle is in place, and the wheels are attached. Take the string that's dangling out and tie it to the center of the mousetrap bar. The string should be coming out of the center of the axle and attached to the center of the flip bar. The flip bar is what will pull the string and make the mousetrap car move forward when it spins the back axles, causing the wheels to move, causing the car to move :)
Hope this helps. Let me know if you're still unclear. I will try to explain a different way.

[ultbandgeek]

That makes everything SOO much clearer(: Thank you so much!

[ultbandgeek]

can someone please explain step 10?

[mturn86]

How far did it travel? i have a science prject and it needs to go at least 10m

[the boss of all bosses]

i was at camp and my friends decided to prank back on me for what i did to them so when i was in the shower they threw the mouse trap at my penis and it stung like crazy. i had marks there for a few weeks!!

[devin is hott]

can i help you with that ill make it feel all betta baayybayyy

[Joe Rous]

can you make mine feel better

[smichealis]

whay does that have to do with a mouse trap car???? O_o

[the boss of all bosses]

we are talking about mouse traps here!!!!! so i just shared a story to warn then mouse traps are dangerous!!
i can share another story if you like??!

[Muhtez]

and how did they even get close to it when u were taking a shower you wold flich 1st to begin with

[squirrel2468]

no thank you!!!

[Johnclave777]

Hey thats really awesome idea new innovation with a cd good imagination
Used Pickup Trucks

[Thekeeganator]

Once you've wound up the back wheel, the string loses is slack and will not spin once the trap is set, what do I do?

[Thekeeganator]

When you set off the trap, how do you get the string to not stop the axel from spinning?

[breanna098]

WHY IS IT GOING IN A CIRCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Skillet14]

thats really help ful and txt me @ 553 9417

[devin is hott]

dang sonn you fine !

[ashpy131]

i do ;)

[ashpy131]

okay i will ;)

[MDani_deer]

?

[doratheexploradora]

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[doratheexploradora]

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Reply

[jellybeensis]

i made one of these in woodshop, but mine was all wood except for the mousetrap

[doratheexploradora]

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[doratheexploradora]

yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[doratheexploradora]

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[eraich]

WHAT DO I DO WITH THE SODA CAPS IM SO CONFUSEDDD

[nmorford]

Here's what second place in states looks like.. this was submittted to MITES (Michigan Industrial Technology Education Society).
Built this bad boy in a team comprised of 2, after countless test runs and adjustments and tearing through boxes of miscellaneous supplies.. it was complete.

[obrooks1]

I couldn't get the hole with the screw because the pen was to hard, so I used a lighter and gently softened up the pen and started screwing. (Dont melt too much or the pen will just be ruined.

[sjohnson51]

what can we use to replace the wheels