While building and testing a mousetrap car the builder must understand a few simple but, vital mechanics. The vehicle will be propelled by the pulling force of a small mousetrap. The end goal of building this car is to have it go from one end of the room to the other on top of carpet. Leverage, kinetic energy, and friction; are things to take into consideration while testing and building the car.
There are two types of levers to keep in mind. The first is the lever arm that is pulling the string wrapped around the axle and is attached to the mousetrap. When choosing a length to have the lever arm the equation to find torque which is force*lever arm. Torque is then used to find inertia which is then used to calculate