Hawthorne students build mousetrap cars to study physics

Submitted by Hawthorn School District 73

In a recent STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) project, students from teacher Sally Busse's eighth-grade science class at Hawthorn Middle School South used fundamental principles of force and motion to design and build cars powered by mousetraps for optimal distance and speed.

A mousetrap car is a car powered by the transfer of stored energy in the tension of the spring of a mousetrap. Students design and build a car that efficiently transfers the energy from the release of the mousetrap to make the car move forward far and/or fast. In doing this project, students are able to identify and describe the forces acting on the mousetrap car. They observe how energy stored in a spring can be transferred into the energy of motion; observe and measure the speed of the mousetrap car as it moves; and describe the energy changes in the mousetrap car as it moves across the floor.

Student success depends on the acquisition of the scientific concepts, understanding the technology used in the mousetrap car's motion, using the fundamental principles to design a better, faster, stronger car, measuring the car's forces and speed as well as how much work and power the car was able to do, Busse explained.

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