Mousetrap Vehicle C

[4Head]

Would a 20 pound fishing line and a 6 pound fishing line have much difference on how many reactions it can take in the same vehicle? Like I sued the 6 pound line which was thin and it took all of the rotations now the 20 doesn’t take all the rotations. Is this due to the thickness?

Yes

[rafaelnadal]

Is 1/8" axle too small in yall's opinion?

[PM2017]

Is 1/8" axle too small in yall's opinion?

Depends on wheel size, and length of lever arm. Will elaborate later, have competition on Saturday, no time,

[pioverrated]

Is there any penalty for going outside of the lines? If so, how much? My car does not travel straight and its going to be very hard to fix.

[terence.tan]

Is there any penalty for going outside of the lines? If so, how much? My car does not travel straight and its going to be very hard to fix.

There is no penalty for that

[PM2017]

Is there any penalty for going outside of the lines? If so, how much? My car does not travel straight and its going to be very hard to fix.

There is no penalty for that

Unless it hits a wall or something for which there is no penalty, but will make you very sad.

[Aristotle]

This may sound like a weird question, but does anyone know if there is an advantage of using one mousetrap instead of two? I understand that with two mousetraps there is double the amount of power, but on our current car (which is light around 125 grams) reducing the mass of one mousetrap would significantly decrease the mass, decrease friction, and increase acceleration. What I'm wondering is whether that increase in acceleration is greater than the force of a heavier two mousetrap car. I made some calculations with two hypothetical cars and found a slight advantage with using two mousetraps but I am not 100% sure these calculations are correct.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Anyone have any thoughts?

[Alex-RCHS]

This may sound like a weird question, but does anyone know if there is an advantage of using one mousetrap instead of two? I understand that with two mousetraps there is double the amount of power, but on our current car (which is light around 125 grams) reducing the mass of one mousetrap would significantly decrease the mass, decrease friction, and increase acceleration. What I'm wondering is whether that increase in acceleration is greater than the force of a heavier two mousetrap car. I made some calculations with two hypothetical cars and found a slight advantage with using two mousetraps but I am not 100% sure these calculations are correct.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Anyone have any thoughts?

In my opinion, you should look at this in terms of energy.

If you use two mousetraps, your car will have twice the potential energy of a car with one mousetrap. That means that (in theory) you will have twice the kinetic energy to work with. Since kinetic energy is proportional to mass (and velocity squared) you will achieve greater velocity as long as your mass does not double. Since your mass will definitely not double with the addition of the second mousetrap, the velocity achieved by your car with two mousetraps will be greater than with one.

Your calculations are a bit hard for me to follow, but I personally think that calculating this in terms of energy is a much better approximation.

[JT880]

This may sound like a weird question, but does anyone know if there is an advantage of using one mousetrap instead of two? I understand that with two mousetraps there is double the amount of power, but on our current car (which is light around 125 grams) reducing the mass of one mousetrap would significantly decrease the mass, decrease friction, and increase acceleration. What I'm wondering is whether that increase in acceleration is greater than the force of a heavier two mousetrap car. I made some calculations with two hypothetical cars and found a slight advantage with using two mousetraps but I am not 100% sure these calculations are correct.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Anyone have any thoughts?

In my opinion, you should look at this in terms of energy.

If you use two mousetraps, your car will have twice the potential energy of a car with one mousetrap. That means that (in theory) you will have twice the kinetic energy to work with. Since kinetic energy is proportional to mass (and velocity squared) you will achieve greater velocity as long as your mass does not double. Since your mass will definitely not double with the addition of the second mousetrap, the velocity achieved by your car with two mousetraps will be greater than with one.

Your calculations are a bit hard for me to follow, but I personally think that calculating this in terms of energy is a much better approximation.

This is correct. Having two mousetraps should theoretically double the amount of elastic potential energy. As long as the second mousetrap is less than the mass of the first mousetrap + the mass of the car by itself, you should see an increase in velocity.

For our team (and pretty much every other team I see), we use two mousetraps to power the vehicle.

[4Head]

So on the subject of launching the cup instead of pushing it:

Would it be legal to just load a rubber band prior to the run and start the run by releasing it? From what I've seen in the rules we're only allowed to use power from the mousetraps to contribute to propulsion but this wouldn't be propulsion.

If not, would we somehow have to use the mousetrap's energy to launch the cup?