mousetrap cars and vehicles

About Doc Fizzix
Doc Fizzix Products was founded in 1995 and is located in beautiful and historic Round Rock, Texas. Round Rock is famous and well known for the capture of the outlaw Sam Bass and is also the home to Dell Computers. Our founder, Alden J. Balmer was an award winning physics teacher from McNeil High School in Round Rock ISD and was the 1996 Texas science teacher of the year. Alden J. Balmer has appeared of several national aired television programs and his products have been featured in countless number of magazines including The Science Teacher, Boys Life, Web Page Design, Physics Today, and more. Alden Balmer is considered the foremost mousetrap vehicle design expert.


Our products are carried by more than a thousand stores across the country including the Hobbytown USA and Hobby Lobby chain of stores. Within the educational market our products are sold to classroom around the country through PITSCO scientific. PITSCO is specializes in top quality science and technology educational products and they have made Doc Fizzix Products their exclusive and only source for quality mousetrap vehicle kits and products.


At Doc Fizzix Products, we have been in the mousetrap powered vehicle business longer than anyone and designing winning mouse trap powered racers is what we do best. Although there are others that have tried to follow our lead, there is no kit that can even compare to the quality and performance of a Doc Fizzix racer. Unlike the rest, our kits and products are tested over and over again to insure that you have the best possible performing vehicle and/or information available. We do not use substandard parts in order to save cost. We use only the best materials available in our products. Our kits are the easiest to build and the best performing racers in the crazy world of mouse trap powered projects.

If you are a interested in being part of the Doc Fizzix family through employment opportunities, setting up distribution, carrying our products, or investment please feel free to call us our send us an email.



What is new with Doc Fizzix?
Coming soon in the summer of 2006, The Science Lab, an all new web site for physics teachers. Soon you will be able to search for the coolest physics demonstrations, experiments, handouts, blackboard examples, and more from the Science Lab. The science lab will be ready for teacher in the summer of 2006, currently we are still setting it up but you can still check out the Science Lab and get a feel for this new and fun addition to the Doc Fizzix network. Currently there are no activities online but check back this summer.


Do you like this web site? We are also available for web design work and programing.



How did Doc Fizzix get started?
Doc Fizzix is actually Alden J. Balmer, an award winning physics teacher from Mc Neil High School in Round Rock, TX. Doc Fizzix had observed through his many years of teaching, that students had very little experience working with their hands or building things. As a boy, Doc Fizzix was always making rockets, models, go-karts, balsa airplane, and many other contraptions. It was Doc Fizzix love of science and engineering that brought him into the classroom and he was determine to make a difference and share his excitement with his students.

In 1990, Doc Fizzix decided to have his students build a mousetrap powered racer instead of the traditional semester exam. It was his belief that students need to apply concepts on their own in order to show that they have mastered the content, Doc Fizzix also recognized that his students had little experience building or creating something on their own so challenging them to make a mousetrap racer was a great way for students to demonstrate their understanding of physics and build something on their own. Students had to also do a full write-up about their mouse trap car that explained how the different concepts of physics applied to their racer. What a success, the students had more fun than they ever dreamed they would have making their own mouse trap car and Doc Fizzix had seen the students develop a true understanding for the concepts that were taught during the course.

Doc Fizzix spent a lot of time traveling around the country sharing his teaching methods and activities with other science teachers and would also appear on local television shows as the resident "Mr. Science". As Doc Fizzix traveled he would share his mouse-trap-racer activity with more and more groups of teachers and before long he had people asking him for a book on the subject. He wrote the now top selling Mouse Trap Cars: the Secrets to Success in 1995 making it the first and only publication written just about mousetrap vehicles.