Rat trap car built for torque

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNQ9aRkPrHc

Recently for a school project my physics class has to build rat trap or mousetrap cars. the cars would participate in a speed race that would sometimes result in a tug of war. during the race i saw many spectacular and original designs. some with gear boxes, others with brakes to stop themselves from being pulled back and some just simple. In the end the simplest design seemed to win however it was quite the competition. Uploaded to youtube i have a video talking about my rat trap car and also recorded bits from competition day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNQ9aRkPrHc

I found that this was a very exciting and competitive project and recommend if you have any spare time on your hands or are looking to try something cool out, to try this with some friends or family. The competition that i find would be the best to do is to have the cars start at a line and everyone releases at the same time, seeing who's can travel 1 or 2 meters he fastest. You could also simply build them for distance and wee which travels faster or you cold do a tug of war/ race like we did in class where the backs of the cars are tied together and both race to get off the edge first. however mousetraps are much easier to work with and easily obtainable.


 If you are looking to try a race out like this here are a few tips:




More speed / acceleration - smaller wheels
More distance - larger wheels
More torque - larger axle
More distance - smaller axle
More distance - longer pulling arm
More acceleration - shorter pulling arm
-to get more traction put elastic bands or rubber around the wheels
-also to increase traction you can make the car heavier however weight reduces acceleration



The mousetrap car transmission

And if you are really trying to impress here is a transmission idea that i had. I made it using a lathe however it can also be made by gluing circular pieces of any material together. The idea behind it is that you wrap the string around the smallest part of the axle first, then continue to wrap it around larger parts of the circle. Now when your car goes the string will be around a large axle giving you lots of torque for acceleration at the beginning then following that up with more speed as it unwraps from the smaller axle. The only thing if found is that if it is too wide at the top your car will slip instead of accelerating fast.