Brainstorming Prototype #4
After the most recent visit and testing the toy with children, the team faced a huge design change at an advanced stage of the project. They needed to reduce the weight by half, add more maze parts, test new mechanical parts, and manufacture all of the toy in a span of several weeks.
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Left: A first look at how the new handles might be added to the toy. They could be curved or straight but their attachments would be the difficult part. No standard flanges would fit the pipe we want and so making the flanges in house would be the only option. The straight pipe could be attached using something that would come from the interlocking component. Either option would be possible but would both take time to make in house.
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Center: The curved pipe would be easiest to make or buy. A 1 inch diameter pipe that is already curved would be simple to find as a stock part. This would mean the flanges would be made in house.
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Right: Another look at how the curved pipe might be incorporated into the toy. The pipes would enable the ball to still travel to each cube while also adding ergonomic handles and reducing the overall weight. The flanges are not shown but the team decided to machine them out of aluminum stock in house.
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Manufacturing Prototype #4
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Polycarbonate Walls
Wall Mazes
Aluminum Interlocking Component
Aluminum Flanges
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Polycarbonate Lids
Middle Mazes
Spiral Mazes
Aluminum Pipe
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Space and skatepark themed backgrounds to add color to the mazes and an additional education component for children. These images were edited in Photoshop, printed and laminated, and laser cut to size in house.
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These middle mazes were dyed to be purple and blue to add more color to the overall toy.
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Mechanical Testing: Round 2
Since the toy design was changed so dramatically, new mechanical testing was necessary to ensure the toy was safe and still maintained structural integrity. This round of mechanical testing was conducted on the handles. The team wanted to be sure the handles could not be forced into breaking off the toy. This test was conducted by a compression test on the Instron once again.
The test setup included two fully lathed and milled flanges, one curved pipe, fasteners, two 1/4" polycarbonate bent walls, one interlocking 80/20 aluminum extrusion, and two 80/20 t-slots to hold the whole assemnbly together.
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Left: Here is the testing assembly in the Instron ready for compression.
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Middle: Initial position of the testing material. Notice the lack of deformation in the polycarbonate wall.
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Right: Final position of the testing material. The material did not fail from the compression. The setup assembly ended up slipping out of the Instron due to the force and large amount of deformation. However, the material does show dramatic bending in the polycarbonate walls at 550 lbs.
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The compression test on the handle was successful. The setup did not experience any material failure during the test which was excellent. The setup slipped out of position at 550 lbs. and then caught itself briefly, before slipping out of position completely and off the machine at 500 lbs. Thus, the team is confident a child will not be able to remove the handles by any form of brute force.
Final Version of Toy
The team finally finished all manufacturing and proceeded to assembly the whole toy.
Above are sneak peeks of the final version of the toy. More thorough images and CAD renderings can be found on the "Final Product" page.
