Yesterday Deanne decided to sort a toy storage area that we have, and she pulled out this mousetrap-powered car that Alison and I built years ago. I had forgotten all about it, so it was pretty exciting to see. It needed some minor repairs, but it still works!
Its powered by two mouse traps which lift a wire that pulls a string that is wrapped around the rear axle. The wheels are made from two plastic Pepsi bottles, which have rubber bands around them for traction.
The axles are made from a wooden dowel, and are attached by a folded over piece of the Pepsi bottle, stapled to the bottom of the thin board that gives it its frame.The rear uses two pieces of plastic with a space in the middle where the string comes down to wrap around the axle.
It goes about 10-12 feet!
Looks like you might have some Macy blood in you. =)
good, I like your design thank you for posting this it has helped a lot!
Thanks for the note Wayne. Glad you got some help from it!
where’s the instructions?
Sorry, no instructions for this. I kinda made it up as I went, after looking at other people’s ideas.
why did u use bottles
The car needed something really light weight. The bottles worked really well!
how far did the car travel.do you know of any website that has clear instructions on how to construct the mouse car.
thank you Michael Comfort.
It went about 12-15 feet on our hardwood floor. Sorry, no other instructions besides just checking out the photos I have uploaded here.
good i might just try that out on my school race doy
Its a great idea i might use it for my school project
To me it doesn’t look like you car would be the best design for a school project. Not because it doesn’t work but simply because it doesn’t go far at all. I am in high school and i had a project to build a mouse trap car and the teacher said that if we wanted an A, than we had to build a mouse trap car to go 45 feet. For any kid with a project, my advice to you would be to build a long, light weight, slender car with a long lever arm. The car that i built went 42 feet. The car some of my classmates built looked like the one above and only went 3 feet.