DIY Children's Carnival Style Swing Ride

My wife and I try to have a project for our grandchildren to work on whenever they visit. They absolutely love building things. We have seen them play for days with nothing more than a couple of concrete blocks and some 2x4 boards. The creative and imaginative things they can built with them is amazing. The project for this visit was a carnival style swing ride. This simple build required only a drywall hoist and two 20 foot nylon tow straps we use for renovating houses. You don't want to miss the video of this contraption at the end of this instructable. It will make you wish you were a kid again so you could ride it too.

Step 1: Safety - or the Lack Thereof...

ABOUT THE SAFETY OF THIS THING - Before you start on all the safety issues of this project please know that we realize this is not the safest contraption in the world. Yes, a kid could get hurt really bad on this thing. However, our six grandkids played on it for hours and hours and not one of them got hurt. (While they were here one of them did walk by a bicycle and scrape his leg a bit). Kids love building stuff. In fact, like adult builders, the build is most of the fun. If you are worried about safety then the solution is simple - don't let them build it. Give your kids a coloring book and crayons. However, if you want to see them really exercise their imaginations and enjoy themselves, quit worrying, lighten up a little and let them have some creative fun.

Step 2: The Build Is Simple and Easy

The build was pretty simple. My little engineers did most of the work.

1 - Put the drywall hoist together per the manufacturer's instructions - minus the support arms on each end of the top hoist beam.

2 - Make the seats by folding the tow straps in half and hooking them to each end of the top hoist beam.

Step 3: Operation

During operation try to keep the hoist balanced by putting equally sized children on each end.

Crank the hoist up a bit to get their feet off the ground. This thing will crank up to over 11 feet in height but none of our kids wanted to go more than a few feet off the ground so that was not an issue.

Start turning!

Step 4: VIDEO

The YouTube video link below will show you this contraption in operation. Since you have already seen most of the pictures in the video just skip to the 1:05 minute mark.

Click the blue link below to go to the video.

Video of Construction and Operation