Hamster Wheel Standing Desk

Intro: Hamster Wheel Standing Desk

You are not reaching your current productivity potential. Numerous esteemed experts agree that standing is better than sitting and that walking is better than standing. Despite this, your workplace only provides inhumane chairs and stagnant standing desks for you to use while you struggle to get through a workday full of distractions and bodily pains.

Rise up, sedentary sentients, and unleash that untapped potential within by marching endlessly towards a brilliant future of focused work. Step forward into a world of infinite potential, bounded only by the smooth arcs of a wheel. Step forward into the Hamster Wheel Standing Desk that will usher in a new era of unprecedented productivity.

This project is a collaboration at Pier 9 between Artist-in-Residence RobbGodshaw and artist Will Doenlen. Thanks to Vanessa Sigurdson, Gabe Patin, Oliver Kreitman, and Bilal Ghalib for helping out in the wee hours of the morning!

STEP 1: Design Your Wheel

Things that are made to fit people are subject to lots of careful consideration. Ergonomics and safety are very important to any furniture project.

We considered adding in brakes but decided against it in order to really force the productivity out of the desk user. In the end, we decided on a wheel 80" in diameter that would be supported by a 24" wide base that contained a set of four skateboard wheels on which the wheel would rest. This design allows fluid rotation without requiring an axle for the wheel.

We already had a standing desk that fit through the wheel, so it was just a matter of avoiding interference and leaving enough room for a human.

The wheel was designed using Autodesk Inventor over the course of a few hours. This allowed for a parametric design, where the diameter, width, and number of slats could be changed easily. We imported a human model from GrabCad to check clearances, and measured every door at Pier 9 to ensure it could leave the building.

See attached files. This project was completed with 24 hours, and the files are somewhat lazy.

This project requires 4 sheets of ¾" Plywood, 4 skate wheels, 2 pipes, 240 wood screws, a pint of glue, and a good attitude.

STEP 2: Cut the Wood: Waterjet

This project could certainly be completed with ordinary power tools and craftsmanship. The arc pieces are the hardest to make, as their precision is key to smooth operation of the wheel. A carefully measured string used as a compass could be used to draw the arcs on a piece of plywood, which could be cut with a jigsaw. A hand router with a template and a trim-bit would make duplication fairly straight forward. We both work at Instructables HQ at Autodesk's Pier 9, and have access to a large OMAX waterjet cutter. A computer controlled machine that uses a high pressure waterjet to cut through any material, so long as it is less than 6" thick. Wood, any metal, glass, stone, any shape, any material. You might think it crazy to cut wood with water, but it saved us many hours of jig-making and saved a lot of wood because we could nest the parts within 1/8" of each other. Plus, the precision made for smooth rolling and perfect registration of the stacked pieces upon assembly.

We cut the arcs from four sheets of plywood. We filled whatever unused space we had with slats to be used for steps on the hamster wheel but cut most of the rectangular slats by table saw.

STEP 3: Cut the Wood: by Hand

We used a table saw and chop saw to cut out the remaining slats of wood used to span the two rings of the wheel. There are sixty something slats in total. We used plywood because we had it on hand. 1"x6" pine would work great and look better, but cost more.

We cut the curved stand pieces with a jigsaw following a stencil we printed in sections. (Not pictured) Acrobat Reader can print the attached pdf as tiled pages. The precision is only important for the hole spacing and the distance from the axel to the ground. The slight arc on the base prevents rocking on slightly uneven terrain.

STEP 4: Lay Out the Rings

The wheel consists of two wheel rings with some 60-odd plywood slats between the rims. Each ring consists of two sets of circular plywood layers, but since the plywood wasn't big enough to cut out an entire layer at once we divided the layers into thirds and then laid out each layer as shown. So, the hierarchy goes a little like this:

One wheel = 2 rings

One ring = 2 layers

One layer = 3 arcs, each ⅓ of a ring layer. (120° each)

Each arc had 4 radially spaced ¼" holes to aid in line-up and fastening of the layers.

STEP 5: Glue Up the Rings

We then glued the layers of each ring together, staggering the two layers by 60° to maximize overlap and stability. Wood glue, when properly applied, can be stronger than wood itself. Initial clamping was done with ¼"-20 cap screws and T-nuts, followed by about 20 clamps. Glue was wiggled out liberally, spread with a piece of paper, then clamped to kingdom come. A sign of a good glue-up is squeeze-out, a small amount of glue emerging along the glue seam indicating complete dispersion of glue.

STEP 6: Build the Base

The base consists of two large, hot-dog shaped pieces of wood, each of which hold two skateboard wheels.

The two plates are held together with tie-rods and steel pipes. 5/16" threaded rods inside the pipe pull the plywood sides together, while the pipes themselves keep them apart. The diameter of the pipe prevents skewing, and allows the base to be stable and svelte. The length of the pipe is key, and had to be changed a few times. Too short and the wheel won't spin, and to long and it wiggles too much. A very shallow and large hole the diameter of the pipe must be drilled in the wood to keep the rod near the center of the pipe. If the rod shifts, the plates will skew. There is no good reason why we didn't just use a 4"x4" piece of lumber and some wood screws, or any other easier method.

The skateboard wheels were attached to the base using 5/16 cap screws with two fender washers and two locknuts. As shown in the image, the first locknut should be super-tight, and the second a bit loose to avoid damage to the skate wheel. We tried placing a Delrin(plastic) disk in between each skateboard wheel and the wooden base to reduce friction between wooden rings and the wooden base, but ended up removing them to no effect.

STEP 7: Test the Base

Once the base was assembled, we tested out the action of the rings on the base to ensure they spun freely and didn't hit the pipes or catch on jagged edges. Resist the urge to use the ring as a Cyr Wheel, it will not end well.

STEP 8: Attach the Slats to the Rings

Satisfied that the rings could spin on the base, we then screwed the slats onto the rings of the wheel. This part was tricky -- we had to redo it several times since we found the distance between the two rings of the wheel would creep upwards or downwards as we attached more and more slats. The solution was to screw in a couple of pioneer slats at strategic 90° intervals along the rings in order to maintain a fixed distance between the rings as we attached the slats.

In addition to being tricky, this part was also time, labor, and material intensive -- it took five of us working together several hours. We went through ~250 screws total, or about every screw we could find in the wood shop.

STEP 9: Secondary Use As Wheel of Death or Bench

Having a human sized cylinder turns out to be versatile. Without the base, the wheel is a dangerous dizzying alternative to a Segway. See above, partially traversing the San Francisco Bay Trail on this novel contraption.

It also makes for a uncomfortable bench for sitting around discarded giant wooden telephone wire spools.

STEP 10: Reflections

Press

The Wheel was featured on a few blogs and publications. Including FastCompany, The Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Cnet, and the home page of Yahoo!.

San Francisco Magazine wrote a very thorough 5-page article about the wheel, Seen above in print.

It was the Answer to a limerick on NPR's "Wait wait... Don't tell me"

The wheel and I were featured on The Queen Latifah Show in October.

And also featured on the daytime talk show "The Doctors".

Comments

[AndrewDouglasBird]

Now make a hamster ball!

[ronh45]

i have seen this already done; there are field sports now where each participant is running inside of a hamster ball! (though not built with wood!)

[Mex5150]

And they don't have a computer inside either ;^<

[JeremyA]

So you haven't seen it done then.

[Laral]

Listen to the Wait! Wait! Don't tell me! segment. Someone did suggest exactly that and described what it would be like at work. Hilarious.

[Punkrockalltheway]

that will bin awesome i would pay a lot of money for materials to make a hamster ball if i had instructions. Im with you man... Hamster Ball!!!!

[VeikkoK]

How about adding a generator that provides to your electricity computer station

[Zero2019]

that would be awesome. then you would have played oxygen not included for real.

[PeterP93]

What a great idea.
Congratulations

[tijoedeyamaska]

I am curious why not have put a font like all the other wheels with a pin in the middle?

[Squ1sher]

I just thought what would also be cool: Building a desk on 2 electronic wheels (like those hoverboards) that autonomously moves around in the room so you have to follow it. Could move back and forth and turn around its axis or move in an 8 so you don't need a super big room. What do you think ? Anybody has done this before ? Any keyords to google for ? Otherwise i'd just start creating.

[Squ1sher]

Now i finished the successor project (i'm using it but it is still a lot work in progress). If people are interested, i can make an instrucables page for it.

Greetings from the walking side !

[Robb]

Wow! That looks amazing! What does it do that a ordinary treadmill doesn't? Is the speed automatic?

[Squ1sher]

It's a different principle. Usual gym (and office-) treadmills (belt-based) killed my calves after hours of walking on it, because of the stop-effect (friction between belt and desk on every foot-impact slow down the belt a little bit). So this one uses slats (24) with small wheels. -> super nice to my calves now. I still have to improve it to get rid of vibrations (thats where hamster wheel shines ;) )

[sergioa3w]

Amazing!! I have to do it. I already have my teeth, and I love cheese. It is very cool!! Thanks for sharing ;)

[SebastianG152]

Hello Robb, nice idea and instructions!

A year ago, I wanted to change something to get rid of my old desk and
have some more motion while working in my office. First, I wanted to have a
walking/standing desk, but the sound of treadmills was too loud for me.

I thought that a big human-hamster-wheel would be nice solution and
after some searching on the internet I found your instructions for your
hamster-wheel!

I decided to design and built a wheel made out of metal and a new
customized standing desk. Almost one year later I'm standing in my wheel and
got rid of my chair.

The Inner diameter is 2,30m and the width is 1m. You can find more details on my homepage: https://www.glanzner-dynamics.de/en/das-work-and-go-projekt

[Randy Martens]

I made something similar to this about a decade ago by attaching a small portable plastic desk I bought out on Amazon to the control panel area of a cheap treadmill I purchased from Walmart. It works great.

Brain researcher Dr. John Medina recommends slow walking, because of all the health benefits attached to such motion, in his phenomenal book Brain Rules. Here's a video link, where he gives simple summaries of the 12 rules - #1 being exercise and its positive effects on both the brain and body.

http://www.brainrules.net/brain-rules-video

[studentduck40]

This won't work; the base is too short. If you're not extremely careful your foot will push the wheel-walk (hamster wheel) loose, and you should probably install a metal band on the wheel walk to bridge the weight out against the board wheels so that your walking is less stressed by the content vibration of the wood's contact on the wheels. You won't notice it too much right away, but the more the wood rolls against the wheels the more lumpy the wood will become.

[Robb]

It works great, I promise! The wheels have very little friction on the smooth wood edge. Skateboard wheels are designed for much rougher surfaces than sanded wood. Note the wood is two edges on 6-ply plywood, so it will not wear like normal wood.

[PogueMahone1775]

LOL no. Great instructable and the idea of using it as a bench or "Wheel of Death" are awesomesauce but running on a hamster wheel while working in my cube would just be tooo...symbolic...