The Flying Frogs

This is the "Flying Frogs," a minor ride in the Froggy World amusement park for adventurous plastic frogs.

This started as a sketch, then the tower and cross bar holder were designed and 3d printed:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53059

The frogs were made out of clay, baked, then glued to the cross rod.

Step 1:

Start with a base and a couple of extender pieces.

Use acetone (nail polish remover--available in most grocery and drug stores) to "weld" the pieces together.  I "paint" the pieces with a small brush then put them together.

Comments

[Edgar]

Brings back fun childhood memories... :) Voted!
Gone to my Blog.
http://faz-voce-mesmo.blogspot.pt/2013/02/fablab-ras-e-reprap-magazine.html

[MikeTheMaker]

Thank you . . . and thanks for posting on your blog!

[Edgar]

You're welcome, keep it up! :)

[nwlaurie]

Love your layout!

[MikeTheMaker]

Thanks--I'm working on train controls now.

[gregoryfenton]

I love this :)
Have you thought about using pneumatics to make the ride go up and down?

[MikeTheMaker]

That's a good idea! Maybe I can modify an old pump or something similar . . .

[gregoryfenton]

Thinking about it some more, you wouldn't even need the pneumatics.

Just a piece of pipe shaped like a tiara ===|\ so the arm can go up and down it. Hope these images help describe what I mean.

Yellow is the new part required.

You would need to modify the part that attaches to the motor (let's call this part Fred) by making it slightly less wide than the distance from the motor spindle to the edge of the motor so it can rotate freely inside the pipe.

You would also need to mount the crossbeam using a pivot and cutting a channel inside Fred so the crossbeam can move up and down on the pivot.

Still with me?

Here are my 5 minutes in gimp images that hopefully show what I mean

[MikeTheMaker]

I see what you're saying . . . that would work :)

[azharz]

Very Nice

[azharz]

Very Nice

[J-Five]

Cool,
By the what's the speed?
And what would happen if like went 20 times the speed?

[MikeTheMaker]

It's 3 revolutions per minute.

Since it's unbalanced (the red and blue frogs are larger), something would quickly come undone at 20 times the speed.

Stay tuned--I may sling some around in swings at a much higher speed :)

[J-Five]

Makes sense.

[randofo]

I really like this series of projects.