house design engineer

hey, i'm natefrom design squad. this is my son calvin. calvin's 16 months old, and he loves to playand climb on things. i think he would really enjoyhaving a play structure right here in our backyard. what i think would be great isto use some recycled materials to build him a play structureout of cardboard, and then when he growsout of it,

i'll just throw the whole thingin the recycling bin. - go! - i want to start gettingsome of my ideas out of my head and onto paper, where i can look at themand think about them. rather than prototypethe whole system, test it out,and build the whole thing again, instead, i'm going to usethe design process to design, build, and test partsof the whole thing as i go.

first, i designed, built,and tested the beams that'll support the slide. this is just a single sheetof cardboard. we know that's not goingto hold up calvin. i'm going to try foldingthe sheet into a triangle-shaped beam. super easy to makewith corrugated cardboard, and so much strongerthan the sheet by itself. let's see about this50-pound weight.

oh, yeah. look at how strong that beam is! this thing will hold up calvinno problem. next, i built the slide. he's testing it out already. i think he likes it. so calvin just climbed ontodesign version one of the slide, so it was flat, and thenwhen calvin climbed into it, it got this nicecurved shape to it.

i think it could actuallyhelp him stay safely contained a lot betterthan a flat platform, like i was first thinking. - wow! - thanks, buddy. that's an even better designthan i thought of. now, we still have a reallyimportant test to do. the slide hasto be strong enough to support calvin's weightwhen he's right in the middle.

that means it's got to bestrong enough to be a bridge. it's supporting the 50 pounds! i think we're gonna be good. safe! next, i designed, built,and tested the columns. now, i have four columns. if this thinggets squished like this, it'll compromise the integrityof the entire thing. so what i'm gonna do is this:cut some circles of cardboard.

i'm gonna cut some slitsin those pancake shapes and smash the pancakes in. the column is really strongthis way, but not this way. this pancake ispretty strong this way in the directionthat the column is not. if i put the two together,i'll get a very strong column that's good in two directions. just get a little tapeto hold that in place. i mean, it definitely helps,

but it's actually notas strong as i wanted. but i do have another ideabased off of this idea. that's how these things gosometimes. you try something out, works okay,not quite how you wanted, got a new ideathat might work a bit better. instead of smashing the disconto the inside of the column, i'm folding the tabsonto the outside. i think this will supportthe slide a little bit better,

and it's faster to build,and it just looks a lot cleaner. of course, if you're buildinganything out of cardboard, you're gonna use duct tape. hey, can you hand mesome duct tape? but we're building a fun, coolkids' play structure. i'm gonna use some of this. finally, tape that matcheshow fun the project is. i spent a lot of time gettingthese columns nice and strong. 50 pounds.

i think these are gonna be good. but i don't just need strengthfor this thing to work. i need strength and stability. i have to hold them steadyin relation to one another to help keep the entirestructure from falling over with calvin on top of it. this extra structurei'm adding at the bottom is gonna helpwith our stability. i've got the column supportedreally well.

now, up at the topis a good little platform that's helping tiethe whole thing together so i have both strength to holdup calvin and stability so the strong structure won'tjust tip over with him on top. you think you can fitthrough this? calvin, your entry portalis ready. i've observed him doing a lot ofclimbing recently-- climbing onto chairs, trying to climbonto the kitchen table--

so i figuredan approach like this with just stackingsome boxes together would be a pretty safe betfor him to be able to get in. he seems to really enjoythe challenge of getting uponto something tall. and test number one of climbingstructure: successful! you like it? good climbing. it's a slide.

you want to go down the slide? bye-bye! (laughs) hey, buddy, was that fun? you wanna go again? so the first test of the slideseems like a huge success. in fact, at the same time,i got to test, "is the box fun to play in?" the answer was yes to both.

calvin desperately wantedto get in the box. not every project getsthis successful this early, but it's always funwhen they do. calvin's just figured outthe idea of repurposing.

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: