The Sandtrap
By: Austin Rider
Jennifer Godbold
Kyle Woods
Stephen Yontz
The Team
Introduction
• Our goal was to build a mechanical “motor” to
lift a 1 kg mass to a height of 1 m at around 10
sec.
• Purchased materials included a mousetrap,
toy car, ball, water bottles, nerf ball, and
gallon jug.
• Wood, water, sand, thread, duct tape, and
nails are the other materials not purchased,
but included in cost.
Process
• We rev-up our toy car and place it on our
platform to hit the ball.
• The ball rolls down the ramp and hits the
mousetrap.
• The trap pulls down the gallon jug with weight.
• The balance’s center of mass shifts to the water
bottles of sand and falls off the balance.
• The water bottle pulls the 1 kg weight to a height
of 1 m.
Energy Conversions
 Toy Car
• Work to Kinetic Energy.
 Ball
• Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy
 Mousetrap
• Elastic Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy
 Bottles of sand
• Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy to
finally lift 1 kg weight
Design Issues
• Most of our time was spent with coming up
with an ideal device to lift the weight.
• Experimented several ways to balance both
weights using our balance.
• We struggled keeping the balance from falling
off the platform.
Conclusions
• Our project took about 4 hours to construct
plus time planning beforehand.
• We enjoyed working together and
collaborating different ideas with each other.
• We saved the best for last!