Design a Portable Swing

Hello, my name is Thibo Castelein and I study Product Engineering at Howest. One of our assignments is how to design a swing. The swing has to be portable, so you can take it to the parc, on holiday, etc. In this instructable I am going to show you how I designed my swing.

If you want to make this swing, you first need to get the materials of course. These are the materials i used:

→ a piece of plywood (18 millimeters thick)

→ two ropes of 15 meters each

→ a piece of MDF (12 millimeters thick)

→ 2 carabiners

→ 2 cord holders

→ 4 screws

To make the seat, you are going to need some equipment like a saw, a drill,... The seat is 20 x 50 centimeters and is rounded on the edges.

Now you'll have to drill 4 holes and make cutouts to the edges as you can see in the image.

At the two sides you'll also have to make cutouts. In the piece in between, there is a small groove which you'll have to make with a router. The groove is there so that the rope will stay in place. You can also check the image to see how it's made.

At the downside of the seat, attach the cord holders with screws

When you are looking for a tree to swing in, you'll notice that not every branch has the same height. To adjust the height of the swing, you can make this easy clamping system.

Make 2 round pieces out of a piece of MDF with a jigsag. Once you made these pieces, drill 4 holes in each piece. If you want the rope to slide easily through the holes, then make the diameter of the holes 1mm wider then the diameter of the rope.

Put the rope through 2 holes when you throw the rope over the branch and comes around, you put it through the other 2 holes.

To connect the rope with the seat, I used the figure 8 follow through. This is a simple, but strong loop.

All what is left to do, is to test your swing.

Connect the end of the two ropes with the carabiners. These will help to throw the ropes over the branch. Put the rope through the 2 holes of the clamping system (already explained in step 4).

If you have any rope left, you can hang it around the cord holders.

In this video you see how I tested my swing.

Now get of your computer and go make and test your own swing! Enjoy!