At the end of the marking period many kids rush to bring up their grade last minute; others don’t need it but would love to have those extra points. The Physics class gave out an extra credit assignment to create a mousetrap-powered car that could go 1 meter pulling 100 grams. The project was worth 5 percent of their grade, which is a big help to some people.

“It was a fun way to get the kids involved with a hands-on physics experiment, “said physics teacher Craig Trombly, “and make something that can work without much direction.” The students had a paper that had all the requirements, although, they and to get their own supplies and create their car by themselves.

Senior Nicolas Nawrocki who is in Trombley’s Physics class used part of a 2’4’’, tape and bottle caps to create his car. Because it was an extra credit project, it was the students’ job to have it done on their own time by the end of the two week deadline. “It was time consuming but it helped out with father son time,” said Nawrocki.

Besides the project being incredibly time consuming, people had other challenges. “My first mousetrap broke so I had to take all the metal off of it and glue a new one on top of it,” said senior Christi Leshock, “since the first was already securely glued and couldn’t be taken off. Leshock made her car out of a thin sheet of balsa wood, mini rubber wheels, a mini DVD and lots of epoxy glue.

Many students say the 5 percent was worth the time. “I had an 89.1 percent in the class before the project and when my report card came home, I was pleasantly surprised with an A in the class,” said Leshock.

Surprisingly, only about 30 percent of each of Trombley’s classes participated in the assignment. Many students found that they couldn’t dedicate the time to the project. Others said they couldn’t get the supplies they needed.

The Physics classes do the project yearly, but there is a different objective to the project every year. There are also other physics projects the students do for extra credit. “I’ve heard about other Physics projects, like the Rube Goldberg and building a toothpick bridge,” said Leshock.

For some people the mousetrap car was all around fun, but for others, they were satisfied with the grade they had previously.