Goal: Construct a spinning prize wheel for our teacher’s students to spin to determine clean-up tasks or prizes. We want the prizes/tasks on the wheel to be changeable.
Research: We looked at other wheels to get ideas for the shape of the base of the wheel, the size of the wheel, and the number of sections of the wheel. We also looked at many different methods to make the prizes/tasks changeable. We looked at different types of bases for the wheel to support its weight. We also looked at pictures of giraffes to design the giraffe head and the tongue. Planning: Initially we were going to make slots in the wheel for different sections of prizes/tasks to be inserted in, but after some consideration we realized it would be easier if painted the circle with chalkboard paint so our teacher could change the prizes/tasks if he wanted to. We decided to use square dowels to separate the sections. Since the dowels we had were not as long as the diameter of the circle, we decided to put pegs on the outside of the wheel for a ticker to land between and choose a specific section. The original plan for the base was to have one large piece of wood supporting one side of the wheel, but changed it to have the base supporting the wheel on both sides to ensure the base wouldn't break when the wheel was spun. We chose the design of the head because we had a bunch of triangular pieces of wood that could easily be shaped into a giraffe head. And planned on using screws to hold the head together alongside some bent metal pieces, but ended up using hot glue due to issues during assembly. We also looked into different tongue designs including 3d printing (pictured on the right), but decided to use some rope for simplicity. Creation: We began with a precut circle with a radius of approximately 24 inches. We started by sanding the outer edge of the wheel to make it more circular. After asking our teacher to purchase paint supplies, we painted the back side of the circle yellow and spray-painted brown spots on it to give the impression of a giraffe (Inside Engineering Joke). After that dried, we painted the front side with chalkboard paint. After doing two coats of both the yellow paint and the chalkboard paint, we asked our teacher to purchase ¼ in by ¼ in by 36 in wooden dowels. We cut those dowels in half to have 18 18in wooden dowels to use as dividers between sections of the wheel. We painted the dowels yellow to keep with the giraffe theme and set them aside until we had finished attaching an axel in the middle of the wheel. After finishing the wheel, we started work on the giraffe head. We first painted these wooden triangles that hadn't been used from someone else's project. Then we bent some metal beams to hold three of these triangles together along with some hot glue. Then we applied the finishing touches like the eyes, ears, nose, and of course the tongue. The final piece we worked on was the base. We cut two two by fours to the lengths of 30 and 50 inches, and then used the drill press to make holes for the axle to go through. We cut six pieces of wood at a 45 degree angle to create the supports for each of the long two by fours. We found a flat piece of wood that we cut to give us room for all of the supports, and then screwed all of the pieces together. We painted the base with yellow paint and then used the brown spray paint to give it all of its spots. Finally we put the axle through the base and the wheel and screwed the giraffe head onto the top of the base. Testing and Improvement: Once we finished painting the front of the wheel with chalkboard paint, we attempted to write and erase chalk. Due to the grooves in the wheel the chalk did not erase fully, nor did it write smoothly. Due to this we spent time sanding down the wheel to be smooth and repainted it to give it a nice smooth finish. After finishing the assembly of the base, we tested the wheel and found that it would only land is one spot every time the wheel was spun. This resulted in us having to add wood to the back of the wheel to act as a counterweight to make the wheel fair. We also tested the tongue against the wheel and found that it would be flung all over the place, so we decided to have it hand in front of the screws. |
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