By: Phillip Pardue, Alex Hoppe, Jeremy Buckles, and Carson Bone

The Group

Original Idea Originally we had a two part design however due to time and cost constraints we were unable to complete this idea. Instead to conserve already constructed steps we combined elements from both steps to create one larger complete step.

The Project Step 1: Mouse Trap activates, letting marble loose Step 2: Marble travels down track and hits the car Step 3: Car activates and pulls lever. Step 4: Lever lifts tipping ball off of end Step 5: Ball lands in bucket and gravity takes effect Step 6: Box being pulled down unfurls banner from spool Value: $16 Cost: $3 Ominous light

Concepts used Conservation of Rotational energy: Mouse traps swinging arms, spools being pulled, mouse trap car Gravitational: Marble running down track, box catching ball and falling Collision: The lever hitting the other and the marble hitting the mouse trap Torque: The mouse traps, mouse trap car Center of mass: The ball balancing on the lever.

Calculations (all Approx) Step 1: Mouse trap force cannot be readily calculated. Step 2: Marble.015 Joules after rolling down ramps. Step 3: Very inefficient car, very little transferred from car due to mouse trap to lever, approx to say only gravitational energy is affecting lever. Car.1 Joules of energy due to gravity Step 4: The force of the lever is used to disrupt the balanced lever that had the ball located on it. We calculated the center of mass roughly, however due to imperfections in wood density we could not get a precise measurement. Step 5: Two concepts are used here, gravitational potential energy and conservation of linear momentum. GPE of ball:.67 Joules GPE of box:.24 Joules, Collision: box+ball= 1.42m/s Step 6: Box transfers energy from itself to the spool. Velocity of box goes from 1.42m/s to 2.44 m/s that transfers from box to spool unwinding the banner.

Conclusion What we would improve if more time: Our project could use some visual improvement, right now it was more trying to get it functional instead of visually appealing Also we would improve the banner release mechanism, as of now it is kind of hard to get it exactly right to get it to pull out well. Everything could be more specifically engineered to work better but in order to constrain our project to the monetary and size limits we opted to use the materials and construction techniques that we used.