Recent content by impulsive

Aaaaahhhh... Now I am seeing how I can figure this out...I did some more runs today... Thanks jdavel, and everyone else.

Basically, right now I need to know the force that the mousetrap is supplying to the car. I first tried to use the 10.4 N force which was too large, then I tried to use work (10.4 N)(3.80M) which was of course also not right, so I know the force must be a LOT smaller than 10.4 N, but I can't...

Okay, I measured the distance over which the force is being applied(about 3.8 m), but I still don't understand what's going on. Am I relating force or work? Or torque? I assume the distance of the trap from the drive axle(where the force is being applied) has something to do with it, but I can't...

Turns out I stupidly made these calculations missing some major factors, which I was reminded of shortly after I made this post! Thank you for your help anyhow. I will post again when I have more details.

I am working on a mousetrap-powered car for my physics class and ran into a problem. I'm not sure if I am doing this right, but I ran the car from rest and it traveled 7.16 meteres in 4.63 seconds. Using the equation x= V initial(t) + (1/2)at^2, a determined that the car's acceleration is 0.668...