Rainbow Spitter

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 how you can make this awesome rainbowspitter. 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/

You will need:

- Nails
- Screws
- Drill
- Saw
- Hammer
- Paint (grey, white and red)
- News Papers (a lot)
- Wallpaper paste
- Pump
- Wooden planks, beams, cylinder( for handle)
- Chicken wire
- Aluminium rods
- Elastic band (10cm wide)
- Spray cans (different colours to paint on the paper roll)
- A roll of white paper
- Lots of coloured confetti

First you will have to make three octagon's out of wooden beams as displayed here above. Two octagon's are smaller and will be used for the bottom and the highest layer. The biggest octagon will come in the middle. Next you will connect the edges of the octagon's and make sure that the structure is stable in all directions. Make sure you leave space for the mouth of the whale.

When all three octagon's are connected you need to make the frame for the tail of the whale. Look above in the technical drawing for how you have to place the wood.

The frame has to be stable when kids push the tail up and down. To prevent the frame from moving you can make the frame heavier at the bottom for counter weight.

In the following step we will make the pump mechanism for the climax. First you will need a long stick for the tail. Then you have to make to pieces of wood as showed in the first picture that will guide the handle of the pump. The pump will be fixed onto the structure.

A pivot point (axle) has to be fixed onto the frame from where the tail can pivot up and down.

Lastly the handle has to be made. You can use a simple wooden cylinder for the handle. Then you attach a wooden spacer block to keep some distance with the tail. In that way the tail doesn't disturb during pivoting. Then attach the tail on the wooden spacer between the handle and the tail.

We are going to use the frame to stretch the chicken wire over it. You can nail the chicken wire on the frame. Finally put newspaper or other fine paper on the chicken wire and fill the form by gluing the newspapers together with wallpaper paste.

Just take a simple stick or cylinder and attach it to the frame and put a roll of paper on it. Make sure you can change the roll when there is no more paper left.

At the top of the mouth attach with nails a thick elastic band as displayed in the picture. Make sure that spray cans fit in the elastic and that they can't fall out. At the bottom of the spray cans you can attach wooden plates in the shape of a tooth so that it looks like the whale has teeth when the spray cans are fixed in the elastic band.

Now we will paint the whale: white at the bottom, grey on the upper part and red in the mouth. Then glue two eyes on the whale, cut out of black paper. Lastly take four LED strips and stick them evenly spread on the white surface.

Now invite a bunch of kids and have fun!