Mousetrap Vehicle C

[Jim_R]

Discussion for Mousetrap Vehicle C.

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2010 Thread

[packer-backer91]

Now that I'm done as a competitor in Science Olympiad I would like to pass of the stuff that I have left for this event. The winning team used a compound lever design which allowed for a shorter length arm to pull off an equal amount of string from an axel that provides the movement for the vehicle there will be many more like that one this year is my guess. If people are having some difficulty understanding how this concept works here is a YouTube video that shows this in a very basic way [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG7rm5iZYEs ]. The shorter the arm the more pull you get thus faster times. I wish I would have pursued this concept last year, I found that video last year but didn't really try to use it.

My vehicle had a bunch of potential but friction killed it!!! this is the most thing to build into you vehicle to limited friction is key to fast times. I had run my axel through ball Barings and it would spin free but because the axel was made from 3/8 steel it slowed quickly. The vehicle weighted exactly 1lb with the drive axel weighing the by far the most. That being said the best time it ever got was 15 seconds and stopped on avg 1cm from perfect. My Vehicle had a long arm 30cm which if using the compound lever could be significantly shorter thus faster.

One tip I STRONGLY urge avoid Tomcat mousetraps yes the can be a little stronger but that advantage doesn't last long [longevity is better on Victor]. Another thing to consider is the placement/ orientation of the spring, not all traps are the same or even as strong as they can be, see if you can find the points that make your traps the strongest, every little bit counts in an event like this.

[ichaelm]

Thanks for sharing what you learned with everyone! I really like that compound lever idea. If I were to end up doing this event, I'd try to make the vehicle as light as possible. Well, within reason, since you still need traction.

[masterhat]

Hey guys, I just posted a really long article in the Mousetrap Vehicle wiki entitled "A Design from 2009-2010". Check it out and tell me what you think I should improve on. I don't know how this compares to this year's rules but it should give you all a good start. I don't know how to add pictures though...

[illusionist]

Hey guys, I just posted a really long article in the Mousetrap Vehicle wiki entitled "A Design from 2009-2010". Check it out and tell me what you think I should improve on. I don't know how this compares to this year's rules but it should give you all a good start. I don't know how to add pictures though...

That's really helpful, here is a webpage with some links for more help on adding pictures: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 943AAeKLWm

[starpug]

Hey guys, I just posted a really long article in the Mousetrap Vehicle wiki entitled "A Design from 2009-2010". Check it out and tell me what you think I should improve on. I don't know how this compares to this year's rules but it should give you all a good start. I don't know how to add pictures though...

If you want you could give me or robot the pictures and we could add them for you.

Would you mind at all if we made your Design a separate page, in the way that we have DS's MPC on it's own page. The MTV page would link directly to it.

[illusionist]

Masterhat, how does the MTV in the wiki picture reverse and go in the other direction? Also, was that included in the wiki description?

[masterhat]

Hey guys, I just posted a really long article in the Mousetrap Vehicle wiki entitled "A Design from 2009-2010". Check it out and tell me what you think I should improve on. I don't know how this compares to this year's rules but it should give you all a good start. I don't know how to add pictures though...

If you want you could give me or robot the pictures and we could add them for you.

Would you mind at all if we made your Design a separate page, in the way that we have DS's MPC on it's own page. The MTV page would link directly to it.

I'm not really sure what that means...

Masterhat, how does the MTV in the wiki picture reverse and go in the other direction? Also, was that included in the wiki description?

I classified it as a category 3 car meaning that there is one string that is wrapped around the axle and halfway through the turns it reverses direction around the pin described in final assembly.

[starpug]

Hey guys, I just posted a really long article in the Mousetrap Vehicle wiki entitled "A Design from 2009-2010". Check it out and tell me what you think I should improve on. I don't know how this compares to this year's rules but it should give you all a good start. I don't know how to add pictures though...

If you want you could give me or robot the pictures and we could add them for you.

Would you mind at all if we made your Design a separate page, in the way that we have DS's MPC on it's own page. The MTV page would link directly to it.

I'm not really sure what that means...

It means the design wouldn't be on the Mousetrap Vehicle page, it would instead have it's own separate page and be linked to the Mousetrap vehicle page

[illusionist]

Masterhat, how does the MTV in the wiki picture reverse and go in the other direction? Also, was that included in the wiki description?

I classified it as a category 3 car meaning that there is one string that is wrapped around the axle and halfway through the turns it reverses direction around the pin described in final assembly.[/quote]
Oh ok, sorry. That makes sense.

[masterhat]

@starpug

Feel free to do that especially if you think that it will keep the formatting of the wiki more consistent.

[starpug]

@starpug

Feel free to do that especially if you think that it will keep the formatting of the wiki more consistent.

Eh, we've been planning to move towards multiple pages per event for a while now

[packer-backer91]

I thought about this for a long time and don’t know what category my vehicle fit into. I had my vehicle coast the final 2-3 meters on the way back. The each team has in the event is the lever arm will only pull x length of string from axel, so I found ways to get the string used to get the vehicle to start slow [very slow] then slowly accelerate to the 7m line then reverse and give the rest of the arm to reach the max speed that is capable for the vehicle at which time the string detach from drive axel and the vehicle would free travel the rest of the track. Now this is risky but if I would have went all power the vehicle would have been 3 sec slower so it was a necessary risk because string is used to maintain the speed. I don’t want to disclose the secretive parts that made my vehicle special because I know they will use the similar design this year as to the one my school used last year. I do know that at least 2 or 3 of the top 6 from my state had use of coast in one way or another; I don’t know if others may have thought of this as another way to propel your vehicle back.

Simply, you can find how much string you need to get out and then to reach top speed on the way back. Then calculate how long your arm must be in order to accomplish the task, in almost every situation this would mean making the arm shorter thus getting more power in the proses = faster speed.

Risk: [know your terrain] look or even do some test on the slope of the floor you will run on makes a large difference at the 7m line and how fast the vehicle will coast. From this knowledge adjust the wraps on the axel to compensate to give more power to the out or back depending on what direction the slope is. Also know the EXACT amount string the lever is able to pull off, if you don’t you will get to most likely see one of the funniest epic fails ever, at full speed your vehicle may stop violently what I seen on mine lifting up the back end and bouncing on the ground [which is bad can brake DVD’s if not fitted to axel correctly].
The the floor can make a big difference, to overcome this for state I went as far to find the slope of all of the gym floor [NOT fun], so if anyone ever wanted to know the direction a ball would roll at Michigan States IM West main gym I could tell you with a good degree of confidence.

[winneratlife]

The the floor can make a big difference, to overcome this for state I went as far to find the slope of all of the gym floor [NOT fun], so if anyone ever wanted to know the direction a ball would roll at Michigan States IM West main gym I could tell you with a good degree of confidence.

Please, do share!

Also, for anyone new, category 3 cars are the only kind worth exploring, to my knowledge. No other prototype of category 1 has been successful, and the concept for category 2 is sketchy at best.

[packer-backer91]

packer-backer91 wrote:
The the floor can make a big difference, to overcome this for state I went as far to find the slope of all of the gym floor [NOT fun], so if anyone ever wanted to know the direction a ball would roll at Michigan States IM West main gym I could tell you with a good degree of confidence.

Please, do share!

I really meant that as a joke although it took me about an hour of to get the basic test done then a lot more time to graph/model what the floor looked like, I can’t describe it for two reasons; one you most likely would not comprehend it it’s difficult for others to understand what everything represents. Also it’s not fair unless everyone from Michigan was on here for me to give it away [unfair advantage potentially]. I went in the gym and conducted the test needed for the graph during a time that anyone was free to do the same thing, thus everyone had the same opportunity to do what I did.

Also I would i disagree with only method 3 being the best one to use. All there are good if constructed and planned well, #1 produced the winner at Nat’s, variations of #2 beat me at state, number three is the easiest but to do but hard to make perfect.