Essay Example on Performance of my Mousetrap Car are Rolling Friction and Static Friction

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The two types of friction that affect the performance of my mousetrap car are rolling friction and static friction A problem that I ran into related to friction was that the CDs are used for wheels didn t have enough traction and they made too much friction with the floor to solve this problem I cut up four balloons and taped them to my tires so they would have more traction Another problem related to friction was getting my mousetrap car to even start moving I had to figure out how to overcome the static friction acting on my car Just saw this problem I had to rebuild my car I lengthened the body added a longer lever arm and more string This added more force and torque to my car I chose four wheels for my car because I was afraid it would be off centered and unbalanced if I only used three Plus I wanted to attach a string on the lever arm in the middle of the two front wheels on the axle If I used three wheels two in the back one in the front the string would have to be attached to one side of the front wheel not in the middle I used CDs with balloons wrapped around the outside of them on each axle Larger wheels can travel farther distances each time they turn Although larger wheels take more power and torque to keep them turning Smaller wheels will accelerate quicker than larger wheels but they won t travel as far each time they turn Newton's first law applies to the performance of my vehicle because since my mousetrap car has inertia it will follow Newton's first law

The car will tend to stay at rest when at rest or in motion when in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force rolling static friction We need to try to use the car to nurture to get it to stay in motion longer so it will go a greater distance The car won't move until the string attached to the axle outside force spins the front axel and propels it forward Newton's second law applies to the performance of my vehicle because in order to get the greatest acceleration for my car I needed to make sure that my lever arm and string hooked to the mousetrap and axel created a lot of force to get my car going You also need to make sure that the vehicle didn't have too much mass so I could obtain the greatest acceleration possible with my car Newton's third law states that every action has an equal but opposite reaction This affects the performance of my car because when the wheels on my car push backwards against the floor it propels the mousetrap car forward Meanwhile friction acts in the opposite direction Newton's third law elucidates how the force of the lever arm makes the car move When you change the length of the lever arm you change the cars acceleration and travel distance I wanted my mousetrap car to go the whole five meters so I used a longer lever arm so I could use more string to pull away from the front axle This way energy will be conserved and my vehicle will go farther

One of the downsides of this was that using a longer lever arm decreases the pulling force of my car Since I use the longer lever arm my car goes quite a distance but it doesn't have the greatest speed At first I used a shorter lever arm but when I would try to start my car the wheels would just spin out and my car wouldn't move So I cut a longer lever arm to decrease the pulling force and so I could use a longer pulling string Using a longer lever arm increases the distance your car goes and decreases the speed and pulling force Using a shorter lever arm increases the speed and pulling force but your car may not go as far The distribution of the weight of the vehicle must be equal so all of the wheels have the same traction An equal distribution of weight lets both axles have the same amount of traction If some wheels had more weight on them than others then they could resist motion and not turn causing the car to barely or not at all move You need to make sure that none of the wheels are wobbly and that they all stay on the ground To do this weight has to be evenly distributed across all four tires Your wheels can also slip if they do not have enough traction and weight pushing them to the ground One problem that I encountered in the performance of my vehicle was at my wheels are crooked and so my car wouldn't go in a straight line I solved this problem by re gluing the wheels on the axle with a piece of cardboard on the back of them to keep them level and straight Another problem that I encountered was the string that I was using kept getting caught on the axle and would stop unwinding This would stop my car completely and would keep it from accelerating to its full potential To fix this problem I exchanged my yarn like string for fishing line Fishing line is very thin yet strong so it doesn't break or get caught when unwinding

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