Re-inventing the Wheel

Side View of the toy
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

This weekend I spent some time with my kids to design and fabricate a basic two wheel toy. First we designed the toy using google sketchup.


This toy is made out of wood available at local hardware store. The toy consists of:
* two 4" diameter wheels
*9" long axle
*2 wheel caps
*connecting rod to axle
* string for pulling

I used a 4" hole saw to cut the wheels out of wooden board. The holes in the wheels for the axle was cut using a Forstner bit. The two end of the axle was rounded on the lathe. The diameter of the axle is 3/4"

We might not have re-invented the wheel but we had a lot of fun building this project. The kids got an opportunity to learn the fun of design and got to appreciate the basic building blocks of transportation.

Click here for more pictures.

Please leave your questions, comments and suggestions about this project.