All around the world children have at least one thing in common: toys. Girls' favorite toys are dolls, whereas boys prefer toy cars. Most girls have dollhouses to compliment their dolls, but on the other hand, few boys have any kind of housing toys for their "dealerships".
I saw the need for designing and prototyping a functional toy car wash. This would provide an interactive and stimulating object of interest for the typical boy who owns a fleet of toy cars. Also, children are always very intrigued by the event of going through a real-to-life car wash with their parents.
A basic research on the availability of kids' car washes was done. Children stores were visited and the Internet browsed. Because of its scarceness, I concluded that my idea to build such a toy was a pretty good one. The toy will target kids aged five years and older.
I hereby propose to create a professional presentation of this project. This will be facilitated with the use of computer aided design software such as Autodesk Mechanical Desktop, Autodesk Inventor, Adobe PhotoShop, Autodesk Viz, 3D Studio, and Microsoft PowerPoint. The proposal stops short of simulating an actual wet rinse cycle due to technical complications.
The following is a brief description of the design of the proposed kid's car wash.
A three-link mechanism was chosen as the drive train for the wash cycle simulation (see Fig.2). Link #1 (or crank) will be driven by a gear-motor fixed to one end. The motor is mounted on the back wall of the housing. Pinned to the other end of the crank is link #2. This link is dragged back and forth with rotational degree of freedom only as the crank rotates. Fixed to the other end of this link will be a slender rod constrained to a horizontal slot in the middle wall, on which will hang link #3, a thin, bent sheet metal representing the spray-hanger for the rinse-cycle.
The second functional simulation of the device will be a simple conveyor system. A rubber belt will be tightly wrapped around two rubber-covered aluminum shafts, with the entrance-end shaft being driven by a second gear-motor fitted with an o-ring and pulley.
Switches will be provided
to enable the actuation of the toy. The mechanisms will be powered by
an external 24V source (not included in design) via wall-mounted connectors.
This project promises
to be a challenging one. Application of the various materials and textures,
lighting, camera manipulations, scenes, and animations, culminating in
the final presentation, will be a test not only of my computer software
skills, but also of my overall sense of creativity and vision.