How to Make Ferris Wheel in Your House

Project name : Ferris Wheel

Areas Implying

• Button
• Motor

Description

• A Ferris wheel that can turn itself when a person presses(hold) a button. There will be two layers of wheels; one with LED lights and one that looks like an actual Ferris wheel. Only the wheel without LED will spin since the LED lights need to connect wires. Each of the layers will have a motor, but they will be put together in one support fixture. The wires that are connected to motors can be hided in the support fixture, and buttons will be separated from the support fixture. Still, there will be wires connecting the buttons and the Ferris wheel inside the support fixture.

Overall

• Balsa Woods (4 inches wide, 36 inches tall)

Button

• Cardboard
• Copper tape

1~2 motor

Wires

• About 10 Red for positive
• Black for negative

Battery

• a pair of AA batteries
• More batteries to increase speed of wheel Less or weaker batteries to slow down

Glue gun

Drill

Box cutter

• 3 major axis to make 6 angles(60 degrees each)
• 2 inches wide, 36 inches tall
• Make a hole at the center of the axis to connect the parts
• Use glue gun to attach the parts of the wheel

• 6 extra materials to connect edges of the wheel(doesn’t have to be a circle)

Connect the wheel with motor and check the speed of rotation

• If too fast, use smaller batteries
• If too slow, add more batteries to the circuit
• Use resistor/transistor in order to adjust power of electricity

Use 6 extra pieces of balsa woods(2" x 4") to connect two layers and build a three-dimensional wheel. The wheel will be more stable and artistic. In this step, be careful to glue so the layers don't fall apart. Also, make sure the distance between the wheel is constant so the wheel becomes straight and neat.

Cut a balsa wood into 2 pieces

• 12.5 inches long for bottom
• 23.5 inches long for main pillar

Combine two long pieces and a shorter piece to make a support fixture

Make second support fixture for opposite side of the wheel

Put motor into the fixture so it completely fits in.

Almost there - time to build a Ferris Wheel!

• Wheel
• Support fixture(with motor)
• circuit and button to activate motor

Last step :

• Try out the activation of the project
• Detect any problem that occurs and fix
  • For example, the wheel might be conflict to the support fixture

Since I took a lot of time to fix broken parts of the project, I could not put LED or sounds in the project. However, it is fortunate that the button and motor do their job. See the Ferris Wheel does work!