Patty had a project for science class where she had to make a car powered by a mousetrap. Using the provided mousetrap she worked pretty independently, because while I had promised to help I ended up working quite a bit on my own homework for the last couple weeks. The day came that it was due and the mousetrap car she had constructed did not quite work.

For one thing the axles were held on with staples that were going to fall out of the board. The staple idea itself wasn’t that bad, and honestly I’d probably try that again if I had to make another car. Second she had the rear axle flush against the board, which did not leave room to wind a string around it. See, the way she designed it the string would go from the mousetrap to the rear axle and then when wound up and the trap set the car would go forward. I fixed these flaws.

Some people asked me if I thought what I did was “cheating” and to be honest I don’t think so. Would Patty have eventually worked out details such as needing to move the axle away from the body of the car? Would she have seen the error in the way she used the staples and had to have invented an alternative? Sure. With time both of these things would have readily been made obvious to her and she would have worked those out. To answer the question then I don’t think it was cheating. I did not really do that much.