Mouse Trap Car

The school year of 2012-2013 has begun, and we are kicking things off with the Mouse Trap Race Car. So far we have earned 14 achievements. With our Mouse Trap Car we won the distance race and got runner up for the acceleration race.

Design:"Brainiac" - Brainstorm solutions for your design. Generate a list of at least 10 ideas/concepts.

"Visualize It!" - Create a sketch of a design and label key features.

Build:"Build It" - Build your design. Document it with a photo.

Original Design:

Final Design:

"The Price of Glory" - If each part you use costs $1, generate a total cost for your build.

The total price of our car would be $50.

 
Test (Compete):
Each car will compete on its own. Everyone will take 3 turns and use their best result. Cars are evaluated on acceleration and total distance covered. Generate your design accordingly.

"Competitor" - Compete in the 2nd Annual Mousetrap Racecar Challenge.

"Long Distance Winner!" - Travel the furthest in the race.

"Going the Mile!" - Travel the furthest or second furthest in the race.

"Led Foot" - Be the team with the fastest time covering the first 24" of the track.

"Heavy Foot" - Be the team with the fastest or second fastest time to cover the first 24" of the track.

"Feedback" - Collect feedback (at least one each of +, change, ? and !) from yourself or your classmates.
+ With our design we were able to win the distance award!
Change: Make it easier to wind up the string on the car
? How could we make the wheels a little tighter
! We were able to change our design to create a pretty good one!


Iterate:
"Re-work" - Change your build based on your experience with the race/feedback you collected. Document any changes.

The documented changes are under the build it section.

"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 could be that you could only use a certain amount of materials. This would limit what people coud use and make it more difficult, but also the feeling of accomplishment at the end.

"Name it" - Invent a name for an achievement that you think is better than what we have currently.

There should be a video achievement, if you post video then you could get an achievement point.

Clean Up:
"Leave It Cleaner Than You Found It" - Did you leave your workspace cleaner than you found it? Explain.

I believe that our group kept our area clean because everyday we would clean up all of our materials.

Reflection:
"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 continuing process where your begin with defining the problem and ending with communicating the results.
Here is a class picture of our design/build process:

We definitely used this process a lot! We began with brainstorming, and then we would make a model of the design, but we changed the design many times. This process is used a lot in the real world, even in everyday work. For example, if you are a builder you have to decide what your going to build. Then make a blueprint of the design. Next, change your design if that first doesnt work and so on.


Video