Here you can see my mousetrap powered car. As a physics lab, I had to build one that was powered solely by one standard size mousetrap. The mousetrap could not be damaged either, so my initial idea of burning the wood base for a steam engine was not valid :). It seems that everyone but me had a variation on the theme of extending the metal bar, and connecting a string between that and the axle.

I was the only design that had pulleys, and my reasoning was that the pulley system I created had an ideal mechanical advantage of 4, thus transforming the mousetrap's pull into a pull four times the distance, at one-fourth the force. This worked well in theory, except as you can tell, I had problems with the pulleys aligning with each other. Also, the wheels were too small, and larger wheels would have increased the distance proportionally to their circumference. Anyway, due to the problems I encountered while giving physical substance to my idea, the car only traveled about 2 meters. Nonetheless, that was sufficient for 2 points extra credit (if over one meter), thus bringing my grade to 12/10. I will conclude this with an explanation of the motion: I pushed on the fake plastic "cheese" of the mousetrap, thus allowing the bar to spring up and move. To the bar is attached string, which is redirected through the metal hook on the base of the mousetrap that serves as a pulley of sorts. This string then pulls down the moveable pulleys, which spin in various ways to have the top pulley pull the string, which unwinds around the wood on the axle, thus moving the car. I think I overcomplicated, in traditional nerd fashion.