rd

-3 Year
-Toy car
-Exam No.44228

~1~

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 childs 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 childs 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 childs 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 shouldnt be too big making it unplayable by
the child and it also shouldnt be too small for the child to
potentially swallow. For shape if shouldnt have any
sharp edges or corners to hurt the child and cant 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.

~3~

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

~4~

The above measurements of the cars in the photo

are 8x3x3.5 inches which is around the size that my
piece will be. My Project isnt 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.

~5~

~6~

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.

~7~

I will incorporate a good bit of my research into my

final design as I make this project. Things like it having
no rough edges, 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 wouldnt put
the effort into playing with it. Heres a great example of a

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childs toy made entirely from one piece of wood.

Development of design Ideas

~9~

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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~ 11 ~

Design #2 - In this design I had more specific features to

the cars 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.

~ 12 ~

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 its not too simple.
-Now because it is broken into parts it can be painted
easier and with more colour.
~ 13 ~

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 shouldnt stray too much
away from this design. Somethings 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 childs 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 doesnt matter to me as I will be painting over
the wood when Im 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.

~ 15 ~

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.

~ 16 ~

Working Drawing: (Page with plan, elevation and

end view will go here, done but needs to get scanned)

~ 17 ~

Cutting List:
All of the pieces mentioned in this cutting list are from
the wood Red Deal.
Base- 270x130x15 mm
Sides- 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)

~ 18 ~

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 Tsquare 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

~ 19 ~

later one I will be adding angles to the sides.

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
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some room for the wheels to move.

As you can see from the above picture I also angled the
sides at 60 degrees so it didnt 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
~ 21 ~

was hard than I taught to cut out a piece of the

base/chassis.

It was harder than I taught because I could only turn

my piece so much before I would end up snapping the
jig saws 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 couldnt 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,
~ 22 ~

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.

~ 23 ~

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 didnt
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

~ 24 ~

line up the drill.

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 xs to show it needed to be
cut and so I did not confuse it and make a mistake. A
~ 25 ~

copping saw was used to cut this out while it was in the
vice. Heres how it looks.

~ 26 ~

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
didnt need to use panel nails on the side. Making it look
better.

~ 27 ~

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 didnt
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 wouldnt 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.

~ 28 ~

I didnt 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.

~ 29 ~

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 wouldnt
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 didnt matter since it was going to be
painted over with acylic paint. The picture of the final
result can be seen below

~ 30 ~

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

~ 31 ~

who would try and put this in their mouth.

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

~ 32 ~

car as well as the steering wheel.

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 edges, 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
~ 33 ~

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 LEDs 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 werent any health and
safety issues and it came out as an attractive
educational toy which can help develop a childs sight
with identifiable colours.

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 shouldnt
~ 34 ~

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.

Mechanism at work: Here are some pictures of

my mechanism (a multi-coloured L.E.D).

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