Help me give my students the opportunity to design, build, and race a mousetrap car.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. McClurg's classroom raised $263
This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Project
Thank you for reading. The goal is for students to design and build a mousetrap car. My physics students have been studying velocity, acceleration, potential, and kinetic energy, and this project brings those concepts to life in a fun and challenging manner.
As a teacher, its fun to see students go through the process of building a successful mousetrap car.
They build, they test, they tweak, and so on until. Traditionally, I organize two separate competitions for the mousetrap cars. The first is a distance competition to see which car can go the furthest. The second one is a bracket style tournament where cars race head to head to see which one is the fastest. Most of the groups will place in one of the categories.
My favorite part of this project is to watch who excels. I've seen students that are not normally "books smart" come alive when they are called upon to do something hands on. Its really cool to see these students suddenly produce a quality product that outperforms something built by more academic kids that usually get As on tests, and are (or think they are) the top students in the class. It goes to show that students learn differently, and having a diverse set of assignments and projects gives everyone an opportunity to succeed
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. McClurg and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
