-3 rd Year

-Toy car

-Exam No.44228

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Portfolio Headings:

Contents page -Page 2

Brief -Page 3

Analysis of Brief -Page 4

Investigation/Research -Page 4-7

Development of design ideas -Page 8-10

Final solution -Page 11

Materials -Page 12

Joining Methods -Page 13

Working drawings/sketches -Page 14

Cutting list -Page 15

Making of Toy car -Page 16-27

Evaluation -Page 28

Conclusion -Page 29

Mechanism at work -Page 30

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Brief: Wood is a natural tactile material that encourages a child’s exploration of their environment. Design and make an attractive educational toy suitable for use by a young child. The toy should incorporate a device or mechanism to aid the child’s sensory development through play. You should demonstrate clearly how you addressed health and safety issues in your design.

Analysis of Brief: My wood work project has to fulfil two things 1-must be an attractive educational toy as in it must help the child’s sensory system to develop over time. 2-It must address very important health and safety issues which could be harmful to the child that this toy is aimed at.

It will have certain limitations, like its size, shape and features. It shouldn’t be too big making it unplayable by the child and it also shouldn’t be too small for the child to potentially swallow. For shape if shouldn’t have any sharp edges or corners to hurt the child and can’t be weirdly shape i.e. feels uncomfortable to play with. It can not feature any loose bits or toxic paint/varnish as that would cause a health and safety issue.

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Investigation/Research: For my investigation and research I looked on google for similar products of what I had to make, so that this would give me a fair idea of what I should start off with and how it should look like as well as its overall shape. In just 10 minutes I found wooden car toys that were similar to the idea I had in my head. They were on this site called “Hummel Creations” which is a site that specializes in hand made projects which people can sell. I found the following Item with a great description of what I have to do with my project. He says “All glue and paint are child safe and non toxic and cars roll freely----and with a little imagination can bring hours of great fun”

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The above measurements of the cars in the photo are 8”x3”x3.5” inches which is around the size that my piece will be. My Project isn’t going to exactly replicate what was done in this photo but I had to research how this was all going to come together. I changed a good few things to complicate it more for myself so it would not have been made out of a solid block of wood. My toy car will be hollow on the inside and have to be made out of numerous amounts of wood. I would have a base, Which in the case is my chassis, and I would connect all my pieces to that chassis. I also wanted to incorporate a mechanism into this car as the brief stated. After looking around a bit more on google for wooden car toys I found a few other pictures.

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There is one thing that all these wooden toy cars have in common, which is that they are all simple designs. This is going to be challenging for me as I want to make it a bit more complicated for myself while making it look simple on the outside of the car. I really like that all these wooden cars in the pictures have no rough edges which makes the cars look more attractive for children as well as not being a health and safety issue with rough edges which could potentially cut a young child.

The only thing I dislike about these toy cars is that they are not colourful and most of them are just plain/the colour of the wood they were made with. You need a childs toy to stand out from the rest if you want to attract a child to play with the toy as the child will always go for the more colourful or standing out toy.

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I will incorporate a good bit of my research into my final design as I make this project. Things like it having no rough edge’s, looking simple as well as making it sturdy. I will also incorporate how the wheel looks well with the car and does not look out of place. I now have an jist of what size my project should be from doing my research so that it is not too big and not too small. A good average size I will work my piece around is 25x10x10 centimetres.

But there is one major thing I will not incorporate in my design which is how the car is made out of one solid piece of wood. This is can be bad as it adds a lot of unwanted weight to the toy which is what a child should play with and if it weighs to much the child wouldn’t put the effort into playing with it. Here’s a great example of a child’s toy made entirely from one piece of wood.

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Development of design Ideas

Design #1 - This is my first design of a very general way my toy car should look like. This was the base/stem design and was where I started to decide on what to do next.

What I like:

-The simplicity.

-The wood is curved and has no corners.

What I dislike:

-Too easy to make.

-Too heavy as it is made from one entire block of wood.

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Design #2 - In this design I had more specific features to the car’s design.

What I like:

-More developed shape than the last design.

-Is made up of separate pieces of wood joined together.

What I dislike:

-The Spoiler on the back is too complicated strays away from my original plan of making the car “simple”.

-The roof is too simple and needs a different shape.

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Design #3 - This is my final design choice and is the one I am going with for my project. Though

What I like:

-Meets the original points I wanted for the toy car.

-Meets the brief.

-Looks simple on the outside yet is hard to put together.

-Roof has no edges yet it’s not too simple.

-Now because it is broken into parts it can be painted easier and with more colour.

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Final Solution:

I choose the last design for my final solution because it fits everything my idea had wanted it to be. Though overtime when I work on it, it is inevitable that design will change a bit and evolve but It shouldn’t stray too much away from this design. Something’s I might change in the future is the little indent on the back window will be steeper so it will go from a 60 degree angle to a 45 degree angle. This design also lets It have the sturdiness of a car made entirely from wood and let me paint each individual piece, which in turn will make it a great child’s toy car and will be given to my younger cousin, who is 7 years old.

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Materials: For my project I will be using the following materials.

-Red Deal (15mm thick and 25mm thick pieces)

-Screws

-PVA glue

-Panel nails

-Acrylic water based non-toxic paint

-Plastic wheels

-Wood filler

-Perspex (optional)

I wanted to use Red deal because it is a very cheap, easy to cut, light and strong which is what I need. The pattern doesn’t matter to me as I will be painting over the wood when I’m done putting together my project. I choose acrylic paint because it is a water based paint and after some research is non-toxic to the environment and to children who play with this toy. Wood filler would also be necessary to fill in any all gaps and then I would easily sand it down so it was smooth and looked just like it was made from a single piece of wood. The panel nails will be used to join everything together as well as the PVA glue. The screws are for the wheels.

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Joining Methods:

To Join my pieces together I used panel nails, PVA glue and screws. I lined up 2 holes at the bottom,2 in the middle,2 on the top and 1 on each coner using a bradawl. I then used panel nails to join the front,back and sides to the base/chasis of the toy car. I used glue for the two wooden axils which will hold my wheels. The wheels will be connected to the wooden axils using screws. The roof on top of the car will be connected using panels nails and screws to make sure it has a thigh and secure fit and wont fall off if it is pushed on by the child.

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Working Drawing: (Page with plan, elevation and end view will go here, done but needs to get scanned)

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Cutting List:

All of the pieces mentioned in this cutting list are from the wood Red Deal.

Base- 270x130x15 mm

Side’s- 270x10x15 mm (x2)

Front and back- 100x60x25 mm (x2)

Front top panel- 100x50x15 mm

Back top panel- 100x40x15 mm

Roof- 100x65x15 mm

Wooden axil- 95x25x20 mm (x2)

Wheel- 40 mm diameter 20 mm thickness (x4)

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Making of Toy Car: The first thing I have to do is get the wood pieces before I start cutting. So I looked in the back of the woodwork room for the specific measurements. To start off I will get the wood for the sides, the base/chassis. For the sides I will need 2 pieces of red deal 270x10x15 mm. For the base I will need one piece of red deal sized 270x130x15 mm.

Using a ruler and a T-square I measured 70 mm from the front of the piece and the 55 mm from the end of the piece. With bot of the sizes marked with a dot on the bottom of the piece I used a T-square and drew a line up and measure it 70 mm before using the T-square to make a vertical line. I do this for the other side of the piece as well so it is easier to know when to stop cutting if I have to turn the piece around. Then with a pencil I marked the section that need to be cut out and cut it out with a band saw. The sides look squared but later one I will be adding angles to the sides.

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The second thing I had to do was to cut out the wheels. I grabbed a piece that was times the diameter of the wheels I wanted (40 mm) and marked 4x 40 mm diameter circles on it using a compass. Next I cut each one out with a copping saw so they look rough, but they will be rounded more soon.

Now that I had the wheels roughly down I began to measure out the base/chassis. With a ruler I divided the size of the piece length ways by 4 so it would give me where the 4 wheels should sit. I the drew a vertical line and on top of it I measured down 17 mm as the wheels are 15 mm thick and some room so the wheels move. I also measured 50 mm length for each wheel as the wheel diameters are 40 mm and the 10 mm are for some room for the wheels to move.

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As you can see from the above picture I also angled the sides at 60 degrees so it didn’t look like a square anymore, as well as I took about 10 mm off the top of the car as the roof would have been tiny when it was finished.

Next I started to sand those wheels down with some sand paper around a block of wood so I could grip it. It took a long time but the wheels ended out nice and smooth. Using a bradawl I put an indent in the small centre of the wheels so it would be easier to drill in later on. After this I cut out the wheel arch with a jig saw. It was hard than I taught to cut out a piece of the base/chassis.

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It was harder than I taught because I could only turn my piece so much before I would end up snapping the jig saw’s blade which I did not want to happen. So with the jig saw I cut vertical lines to where I marked and tried to get as much out. The bit I couldn’t get out with the jig saw I chiselled out.

My next agenda was to cut out the back and front of the car. I decided to get an extra thick piece for the front and back because later on I want to chamfer the top of it and with a thicker piece so it would be easier to do later on. The Only piece of red deal we had was perfect size, it was 200x60x25, all I had to do was to cut the middle of it so it became two pieces of red deal sized 100x60x25 which is perfect dimensions I need for the front and back of my toy car.

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The wood axils came next and instead of using new red deal for them luckily the person beside had some waste pieces which could be cut for the axils which will hold the wheels. I sawed the two axils to a size of 95x25x20 mm. Before I attached the axils to the bottom of the car I used a bradawl to make and indent and made a hole for the screw of the wheels using a 10mm drill bit and a vice to secure the axils before I drilled into them. After the axils have the holes drilled in I glued the axils directly beneath the centre of the wheel arch and clamped the pieces to the base to make sure the didn’t move, Because if the did then the wheels would be hitting of the wheel arch in the future.

While the glue was drying in I decided to drill the holes into the wheels using the same 10 mm drill bit from before and the vice. The indent I made earlier helped to line up the drill.

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I wanted to make the sides a bit different as they still had a blocky look to it, so I used a protractor to measure the back side and make a steep angle of 45 degrees at the bottom. This made it look better and took of an edge. After that I used some sand paper and sanded of the sides to make it more rounded. This took quite a long time so for the 2 edges that needed to be rounded a lot I used an orbital sander that we had at the back of our wood work room.

The next thing to do was to make a wheel arch on the sides. For this I made an eclipse so it was just a circle which would have took up a lot of room on the side. I then marked it clearly with x’s to show it needed to be cut and so I did not confuse it and make a mistake. A copping saw was used to cut this out while it was in the

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vice. Here’s how it looks.

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With my sides and back complete I then started to attach them to the chassis. I did this by the use of a bradawl for where the panel nails would go, then used a Warrington hammer to hammer in the nails.

Like this -

To make sure the front and back were secure I used PVA glue so it stuck to the sides. This also made it so I didn’t need to use panel nails on the side. Making it look better.

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After all the pieces were attached to the chassis, I worked on getting the top pieces of the front and back. I got two pieces of red deal,the front top was 100x50x15 mm and the back top was 100x40x15 mm.I really didn’t want to use any more panel nails unless I needed to so I glued both those pices the sides. I secured it then after with a clamp so it wouldn’t move.

While the glue was drying I realised something, the wooden wheels I made were off as the were very wobbly,I tried to fix this by sanding down any bumps but it was no use and due to time constraints I opted for some plastic wheels to replace the wooden ones. They will end up looking much better and wont wobble.

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I didn’t want the wooden wheels to go to waste so I had an idea which would fill a bit of the empty space in this hollow car and give it something extra.

I got 2 of the wheels and cut both rectangulary and then used one screw and a bit of glue to make a seat. I then used the other two wheels to make a steering wheel. I reduced the diameter of one of the wheels to 10mm and the other wheel into a small square,the steering wheel will be attached to square which sticks to the front of the piece. The seat was then place in the middle of the car.

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I was nearing the end so I cut a bit of red deal to the dimensions 100x65x15. With the car clamped in the vice I used some glue to hold the roof steady,glue wouldn’t be strong enough for the roof especially if a child is going to be pressing on top of it, the glue was usedjust to keep the roof from falling while I added 4 panel nails to it, 2 on each side.

The roof was now complete so I started looking for the plastic wheels that I wanted to replace the old wooden ones. A relative of mine had a very old toy truct and the wheels were the perfect diameter for my wooden piece so I asked him for them. The metal axil that was already attached to the wheels was pretty hard to get off and I had to resort to pulling on the until they broke off. With the axils off I used the 8mm drill bit and drilled a hole in the plastic wheel which will then house the silver metal screw that blended in with the wheel.

Nearing the painting process I sanded down all of my piece to make sure I was smooth all the way around. I used wood filled so it looked the it was made from just one big piece of red deal. The wood filler worked great and the colour of it didn’t matter since it was going to be painted over with acylic paint. The picture of the final result can be seen below

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My project needs to be painted before I put in the mechanism.My mechanism is going to be a mutli-colour LED which will sit on top of the roof and illuminate the car. I wanted my project to full devolp a childs sight with different identiable colour.

The sides were painted blue, the whole middle section of the car was painted red and the chassis was painted green. These were all painted using non toxic acrylic waterbased paint which would not harm the child who would try and put this in their mouth.

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When the paint was dried the next day I measured a hole that was the diameter of the circular LED base which was 35 mm, on top of the roof of my car. I drilled this hole using a wood spade which was connected to the wireless and had a diameter of 35 mm. I stopped when I taught I went deep enough. With the hole done I then put the multi-colour LEN in it. It sat snuggly inside and looked ideal.

To clean up my project a bit I added a second coat of paint and a dark green, I also painted the insides of the car as well as the steering wheel.

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Evaluation: Overall I think I did a good job on completing what the brief has asked me to do. I really like the overall shape of my toy car and how there are no edge’s, This makes it attractive and easier to hold for the child playing with this toy car. Another thing I like is the overall smoothness, the wood filler helped a lot to make it seem like it was carved from just one piece of wood. The last thing I like about my project is how sturdy the car is, it honestly feels like it wont brake anytime soon.

There were some things though that if I had more time on the project I would change or add. When making the wheel axils I went too deep with the drill bit on one of the wheels so the screw was looser than the others, If I was doing this project again I will make sure to use tape on the drill bit to indicate how far I need to go. I would also try and fix the multicolour LED’s button as it is pressed in which makes it a bit difficult to turn on. The wooden wheels were very hard to get perfect so I should have spent a bit more time to make sure they the holes and everything else with the wheels were perfect.

I think my project met the brief well and accomplished everything the brief has asked me to do, I incorporated a mechanism, I made sure there weren’t any health and safety issues and it came out as an attractive educational toy which can help develop a child’s sight with identifiable colours.

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Conclusion: After many hours of hard work my project is finally done. Since this was my first project I learned many things that can help me improve in the future. I learned that I should give more time to things that are essential to what ever it is that I am making, i.e. more time spent on the wheels if the wheels are an essential part of the car. I also learned that I shouldn’t under estimate the power of super glue, as I accidently glued my fingers together when trying to stick the LED to the car. At least it Only took 1 minute to dry.

Even though I had been working in the wood work room now for almost 3 years there were still some tools that I just learned to use, such as the router which can be used for decorative edges and or indents.

Now that I have done the work myself I can really appreciate the work that some of those people did online when making their toy car.

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Mechanism at work: Here are some pictures of my mechanism (a multi-coloured L.E.D).

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