Analysis and Results .
From the data it is clear that the shortest distance traveled by The Asian Tomcat was 53 ft and the longest distance was 65 ft therefore it can be determined that it was a relatively consistent car, not wavering too much in the results it produced. Unfortunately, the lateral distance was also consistent, equaling 4 ft 4 in (or 4.3 ft) for every run. The reason this lateral distance was the same for every run was because our car stopped upon hitting the left side hallway wall that was 4 ft 4 in away from the designated straight line. For our first two trials we obtained a distance of 53 ft before our car hit the wall. To adjust for this we tried placing our car further to the right side of the hallway. This adjustment allowed our car to travel between a foot and two feet further with distances measuring 54 ft and 55 ft. Next, we tried placing the car all the way to the left side of the hallway and angling it to the right instead. This set up yielded the greatest results of 56 ft, 60 ft, and 65 ft. It is evident from these slight adjustments that placement and angle had an effect on the distance our car traveled for changes in these aspects aided our car in going a farther distance before it veered into the wall. The variance in these results could also be due to how tightly we wound the string on the back pen axle for it appeared that the tighter we wound it the farther the car went. (However, more runs and proper documentation would be needed to confirm this relationship.) Previous to The Asian Tomcat, we built a similar car, but with bigger dowel rod axles and no reinforced wheels. This car did not go near as far and veered to the left severely (even more severely than The Asian Tomcat). These problem led to the building of The Asian Tomcat. Instead of dowel rods, which were too heavy, we used the outer shells of pens to make it lighter. Then we used water bottle caps to reinforce the wheels which helped them to go a little straighter. In addition, when building The Asian Tomcat we made sure to screw the eye hooks all the way into the mousetrap. In our first car we did not which caused the dowel rod axles to be slightly angled which in turn caused the car to veer to the left. By screwing the eye hooks in all the way we corrected the degree in which our car veered to the left a lot (even though it still favored the left side). The final thing we learned from our first car was that the less it weighed the better. Our first car was heavier than The Asian Tomcat and did not go near as far. All in all, The Asian Tomcat is a pretty good car. A lot of the adjustments we made corrected a majority of our problems. Further improvements could be to put more reinforcements on both sides of all the eye hooks so that the frame does not slide around on the axles as much therefore not allowing the car to turn as much. Other than that we could try a slightly larger object as our lever (which is the chopstick). However, too big a lever could cause our car to flip over. In conclusion, The Asian Tomcat is a great mousetrap car!
worked on by alex thephachanh and shannon brennan :)