Students Race Toward Innovation in First Junior School Mousetrap Car Challenge

While the stakes may have been low, the energy was high during the first-ever mousetrap car race that pitted student engineers from all four Lakota junior schools against one another. “Adding the light competition really helped push our students into a stage of innovation, which was fun to watch,” said Ty Davis, who teaches Butler Tech’s design and modeling class at Ridge Junior School. 

Because all four teachers tackle the mousetrap car project in their classes, the race was the perfect way to add some friendly competition and encourage deeper exploration among students in their after-school engineering clubs. 

“The mousetrap car has a ton of ways that it can be manipulated to do different things, and it's a project that kids can spend a lot of time experimenting with,” said Plains Junior and Butler Tech design and modeling teacher Jeff Ramsey. “I liked the idea of them having the basic knowledge of how to build a mousetrap car and then being able to expand and experiment with different materials that weren't available for them to use during class.”

With each iteration, students made new discoveries about mechanics, friction and energy transfer, among other important concepts in STEM learning. Liberty Junior seventh grader Diya Shah noted that they had total creative liberty and control over the placement and design of the large rod attached to each mousetrap. “We did a lot of testing and learned that going beyond 90 degrees gave our car more leverage,” Diya reflected. 

This freedom to innovate led to impressive levels of persistence and creativity. Students didn’t settle for a single design—they built, tested, and rebuilt multiple versions in pursuit of improved performance.

“I was most impressed with the students’ perseverance and eagerness to try new ideas,” Ramsey added. “All of my groups had multiple cars because they were continually trying to make a better car.”

Students worked in groups, combining their ideas and experiences to build the most effective designs possible. The shared goal of improving performance fostered communication, problem-solving and mutual support. 
“What impressed me most was seeing students work together to accomplish the goal and bring their life experiences together to create the best project they could,” Davis added.

Beyond the immediate excitement, the competition served a larger purpose: preparing students for future opportunities in high school and beyond. For one, the Technology Student Association (TSA) is the STEM-related organizations that Lakota engineering students have the opportunity to participate in at the state and national level. Beginning in high school, students can voluntarily compete at the local and state levels in an effort to advance to the national competition.

“The students got the experience of a competition similar to one they will have at the high school level,” Ramsey explained. “They also got to see how their creations fared against cars from different schools.”

Besides deepening their understanding of STEM concepts, experiences like this open doors to future possibilities. “I’ve always like building, but didn’t’ really consider myself good at it until taking this class and joining this club,” Diya said.