Introduction: Rainbowspitter
We are students at the West-Flanders High School (HOWEST). We study industrial product design and for our project "My Machine" we worked together with a primary school and a technical secondary school. The primary school had to draw their dream machine(see drawings above) we made the concept realizable and made the first prototype. The secondary school will make the prototype in the final materials using our technical drawing.
The rainbowspitter is designed to make children happy. They can colour it's tongue and move the tail up and down which causes to light up more or less lights. When all the lights are lit, confetti comes out of the spout hole of the whale as a climax for the kids (it really does make the kids happy).
In this Instructable we will explain and show how you can make this awesome rainbowspitter according to the technical drawings. The technical secondary school as well will make the prototype according to these technical drawings. The Intructable is for a big rainbowspitter, but it's also possible to make one as big as you want.
If you want to know more about this awesome project, check the MyMachine site: http://mymachinevlaanderen.be/
To see our entire design process check out our blog:
https://hetgroeneeiland.wordpress.com/
If you want to make our simplified prototype check our following Instructable:
Step 1: What Do You Need
- Steel Tubes (S235JR)
- Tube bending machine
- MDF boards
- Manual saw or a bandsaw or a laser cutter
- Welding machine
- 26 M6 weld nuts
- 26 M6x20 hex-socket-heads
- Wrench
Here above you have all the technical drawings, assemblies and exploded views to keep over view on what you are building.
Attachments
Step 2: Making the Bottom Part of the Frame
Cut the steel tubes on the right length and bend them in the correct angle. Then make the base of the machine and the middle and biggest ring of the frame. Make sure that the fixer plates for the nuts and bolds are also welded on the tubes. Now weld the bottom part together. Use the technical drawings above to guide you look to the assembly to see where the individual parts have to be welded and look tot the individual technical drawings to see how you have to make the separate parts.
Step 3: Making the Upper Part
Cut the steel tubes on the right length and bend them in the correct angle. Then make the upper ring and weld the fixer plates for the nuts against the tubes and weld the tube against the upper ring. Now you can assemble the bottom and upper part and weld them together.
Step 4: Make the Tail Structure
Cut the steel tubes on the right length and bend them in the correct angle. Then weld the fixer plates for the nuts against the tubes and weld all the tubes against the upper and lower part of the frame.
Step 5: Making the Tail System
The tail system which initiate the climax consists of a handle, a tube and a pivot point. First cut out the tail shape, the handle and the handle attachment to the metal tube. Assemble these parts together and lock the handle with the axle retaining rings on both sides. Next cut the metal tube on the right length. Drill three holes for the bolts to attach the handle and one hole for the axle of the pivot point. Finally assemble all the parts together and mount the system on the frame.
Step 6: Building the Climax System
The climax system will initiate the confetti to pop out of the spout hole of the whale by connecting a compressor on the valve and releasing the compressed air in the spout hole which will shoot the confetti in the air.
The spout hole is made out of a standard steel profile tube also the valve is a standard part. Weld the two together and screw the system on the top plate of the rainbowspitter.
Step 7: Fix the Wooden Plates
Now that the functional side is complete it is time to cover up the open spots. Cut the wooden boards out of the MDF wood and cut out the holes where necessary (for example: the plate where the tail goes threw and the top plate for the spout hole). Then screw the wooden boards with the M6 bolds on to the frame structure where the nuts are welded on the fixer plates.
Step 8: Casing of the Frame
Now you can choose accordingly to your budget how you fill the space between the steel tubes. We give you some options some more expensive then others.
- Attach chicken wire between the tubes by welding it on, or attach it with metal wire. Then stick newspaper together with wall paper paste and fill the form. We applied this method for our first prototype and it works well (see the pictures above).
- Attach alloy strips on the frame by welding it on the steel tubes. This method is the most expensive.
- Attach a textile cloth between the tubes with ropes or textiles loops, the attachment is just like you would attach the sail of a tent on it's frame. Beware that you take the right colour of textile cloth. You can choose the colours your-self or look for inspiration in the following step.
Step 9: Painting
Now paint the aluminium strips or newspapers in your favourite colours. Be creative or do the same as we did with our first prototype like in the picture. The mouth is red, the upper part is grey and the lower part is white. Of course when you have used the textile method you have to buy the right colour of textile.
Step 10: Visual Help
In these video you can see how we made the simplified prototype out of wood maybe it can help you to build the machine. Good luck!
Step 11: Have Fun!
Invite a group of kids and have fun!
In this video you can watch the success that we had with this machine (rainbowspitter). Our goal was to make kids happy and we think we accomplished. You can watch the simplified version as in the video on our other Instructable: https://www.instructables.com/id/Rainbow-Spitter/.
Thank you for reading and good luck with building.
