Mousetrap Cars
Use mousetrap cars to make hands on connections with concepts such as energy, friction, momentum, and simple machines.
By Jennifer Sinsel
If your students are anything like mine, they find many physical science concepts challenging to comprehend. Ideas such as potential and kinetic energy, friction, inertia, momentum, and simple machines can all be highly confusing for elementary and middle school students – especially if they are taught without any real-world connection. However, teachers can use simply constructed devices known as mousetrap cars to not only give their students some experience with these scientific ideas, but create hours of hands on fun as well!
A mousetrap car is a vehicle that is designed to run on the energy that can be stored in a wound up mousetrap spring. In the most basic design, a string is attached to a mousetrap’s arm and wound around a drive axle (such as a wooden dowel or metal tube) as the arm is pulled back. Once the arm is released, the string is slowly pulled off the drive axle, causing the wheels to turn. The car is then propelled forward!
To get your students started, make sure they have a basic understanding of the science vocabulary you want to reinforce. For example, you might choose to construct the cars during a unit on potential and kinetic energy. Mousetraps are great examples of contraptions that operate on these principals! When the trap is set, it is loaded with lots of potential energy. As soon as it is sprung, the potential energy is immediately transferred to kinetic energy.
Within small groups, try giving your students a mousetrap, balsa wood, cardboard, string, old CDs (useful for wheels), wire hangers, wooden dowels, tape, glue, thread spools, and anything else you think they might need. Let them know that their task is to create a vehicle that can be powered only by a mousetrap. Their vehicle must also adhere to the following rules:
1. The vehicle may not be started by a push or a pull – the trap must be sprung in order to get the vehicle moving.
2. The vehicle must travel the greatest distance possible in a relatively straight line.
3. No other forms of propulsion (like a motor or batteries) may be used.
As a writing extension, students should be able to explain the scientific principles at play in their science journals. Finally, sit back and watch as imagination and creativity go to work. For more mousetrap car lesson plans see below.
Mousetrap Car Lesson Plans:
This series of lessons provides students with a comprehensive overview of mousetrap vehicles. Students learn how to construct a mousetrap car. It also has a rubric for assessment of student work.
In this lesson students learn how to build a mousetrap car, step-by-step. Afterwards, students could hold a special event like a Physics Field Day.
This lesson has students learn some of the scientific vocabulary and concepts associated with mousetrap cars.
Mousetrap Cars and Simple Machines
Students create mousetrap cars, and learn about other types of simple machines. As students perform the activities, they input information into a computer program, thereby providing a technology connection for the lessons.