mousetrap car help center

Making a "Super" Long Lever Arm

By Doc Fizzix // Published Nov 17, 2005

EXPLANATION: Brass tubing works well for shorter lever arms that are no longer than 12 inches. When using a lever arms that is longer than 12 inches, the lever arm will tend to bending under the force of the spring causing the system to loss starting energy since the spring will not get fully compressed when the string is fully wound-up. If you are building a long distance traveler and you want to use a very long lever arm (longer than 12 inches) you will have to make a lever arm the will not Bend under the load force of the mouse trap's spring at the start, try the following:

Try the following :
Using two 1/2 inch x 1/8 inch thick x (length you want), construct a "T" by gluing one of the pieces to the center of the other. A 6-inch brass rod is attached to the top side of the "T" lever so that the new lever arm can be attached to the mousetrap. The brass rod needs to be supper glued to the top of the wooden lever arm. It may be necessary to use some wire or thread wrapped through the wood and over the brass rod in order to hold the brass rod down so that it does not pop off. The brass rode is slipped onto what is left of the snapper arm after the snapper was cut and removed. A notch will need to be cut on the bottom side of the wooden lever arm so that it can fit on the trap.




See the following related articles to get started:

• basic mousetrap vehicle propulsions (how to make it move)
• making a good distance traveler
• making a good speed-trap racer