The CP Car

Hello! I wanted to show everyone my toy design that I have made in TinkerCAD. I have not made it in real life, but I thought that this competition would be a good way to get other people's opinions on the design!

I hope you like it! :]

The only supplies needed is some TinkerCAD knowledge, and something to run TinkerCAD on.

For school, we had to make a toy/activity for people with cerebral palsy. We got to choose what type of CP the toy would be designed for, (monoplegia, hemiplegia, etc.) and I chose quadriplegic CP, basically meaning that all four limbs don't function as well as someone's without CP. I had to think about what was going to help the people who I was designing the toy for, and I chose to make a toy that had things similar to a car, but simpler. this way, the kids can try to learn different mechanics in a car, since it would be really hard to learn with limbs that don't function properly at an older age.

The picture provided is a picture of a sketch that I made. I thought about what mechanics I should use for each part of my toy. I wanted to make is simple, since their disability is hard to work with, but also not insanely easy to where they aren't getting stronger after playing with it.

I also had to think about what would be easy and comforting, considering the CP I designed this for affects the entire body.

When I was designing in TinkerCAD, I had to figure out how to make a chair that would be comfy, and still serve the purpose of the toy. I eventually realized that TinkerCAD had a premade chair. I chopped off the lags and it left me with just the seat part. I saved it to my shapes collection, and made it "my own shape" so I could resize it. I stretched it out towards me so I could get the length that I wanted. The design was supposed to have someone's full body in it, so I needed to make it pretty long so they could fit their legs around the wheel, and still be able to reach the pedals at the bottom.

After stretching and grouping and everything else you could think of, I was adding my cords. I quickly found out that I can't be very particular about the cords, and just use the scribble tool to draw a squiggly line.

For the wheel, I just quickly flattened 2 spheres and stacked them on top of one another, making sure the middle one was shorter and it stuck a bit farther over the larger one.

Everything else is pretty self explanatory. As I was designing, I realized that the toy could be used for any type of CP, since this toy helped with all limbs.

Here is what I was thinking when designing the CP Car.

The Wheel: When kids get older, they are going to want to drive like someone else can. With CP, it is hard to do this. I thought that if I added a wheel, it would be similar to a car in real life. This would make it easier for kids to learn to drive when they are older, and also give them some more experience with real world everyday items.

The Cords: The cords didn't mean much to me at first. I had just added them to give more options for arm strengthening activities. After adding them, I realized it was similar to the gear shift in a car. This could help younger kids learn how to pull, and would he helpful with a gear shift when they are older. I decided to keep them next to the wheel to get used to the positioning of everything in a car as well.

The Pedals: I mean, these are kind of self explanatory. You push pedals in a car to go forward. I figured that this could help kids legs become stronger, and teach them how hard they need to push a pedal to make it all the way down, and find a comfortable position. This would also help their ankles, because it makes them straighten out their ankles pretty much all the way.

I think overall, this would be a great toy for the market. This toy could even help kids without cerebral palsy learn the positions of things in a car. Of course as kids get older, they are going to get more and more bored of it, so they won't enjoy it as much, but it will give them background information on what things could look similar to in a car.

Thanks for looking at my project, I hope you liked it! :]