Aside from fast and long distance cars, mouse traps can now be used to power other science project vehicles. There are a few Physics teachers nowadays that are asking their students to make, instead of a mousetrap car, a mousetrap powered boat.
Yes, a water vessel that can move on its own by using a simple mechanical object as its source of motive power could be done. And it is proven time and again by numerous students who are tasked to make one these every year.
How does it work?
The concept of how this boat works is really simple. In fact, it’s very similar to how mousetrap cars work. The only difference is that with the cars, you need to use wheels to make the car move, while with the boats, the axles are connected to paddle wheels.
The boat should have a platform where the mouse trap is placed. Balance of the boat is important here so it would be a good idea to have the mousetrap set at the front of the platform since the paddle is at the back. If both the mousetrap and the paddle are at the back of the platform, chances are, your boat will sink.
Now, the snap of the mousetrap should have an extension since you want to conserve the potential energy stored. A string connects the extension and the axle of the paddle wheel. When the snap is released, the string will turn the paddles and thus, will push the boat forward. Now, as i mentioned, you want to extend the time of releasing the energy from the mousetrap’s snap. The reason for this is that there is more friction involved with the boat as compared with the car and you don’t want to waste all the energy on starting the movement of the boat alone.
If you want to minimize the friction of the boat with the water, it is a good idea to make its hull shaped the same way as that of a real boat. This will make it easier for your boat to slice through water.
As you can see, it is actually very possible to make a water vehicle with a mousetrap as its source of motive power. This is very interesting since you could see through these simple school projects that different types of vehicles could be moved by using the same source of energy. Or, looking from a different perspective, you could use different, environment friendly sources of energy to run and power everyday vehicles.
It’s an interesting thought. Perhaps someday, someone could really come up with a mechanical source of energy for vehicles other than DaVinci.
