Thread: Drawing/design program

Some CAD programs can compute the centre of gravity of simple or complex ($$$) shapes. Even then, the addition of a child, in various stances, makes the computation even worse, because of the roll of the rocking horse. For drawbridge balancing, I've used very extensive spreadsheets to establish counterweight configurations. Even included the paint or ice separately IIRC. After all that, though, we provide removable "trim" blocks similar to car wheel weights, except 75 lbs. each instead of a ounce or so, and quantity of a hundred or more.

For limited-production toys, some trial prototypes should be a lot less tedious; and provide more insight and confidence anyway.

Joe

Joe.... to this old kindie teacher your way is hmm..... well.... way out there.... lol
I like chipman's trial and error if it weren't so costly.
What I find myself doing a lot of the times with any little toy I make is built it in miniature first.... not a sure fire way, but give me an idea anyway.

Juvy

Oops! I omitted a 'minor' detail. Those were real drawbridges. Each leaf is about the same weight as a Boeing 747 at maximum takeoff weight (~ 1 million pounds), but not quite as large. For balancing, the centre of gravity must be within about an inch of the pivot point, to minimize load on the machinery and assure proper behaviour in motion. The trim blocks assist in achieving that.

A miniature model is an excellent tool for gaining insight. And too much detail can get in the way. Start with a cardboard outline, and work up from there.

Joe

Google Sketchup. watch the online tutorials, and have a play. In a couple of hours you'll wonder why you persevered with MSPaint, Word and the like.

Dave, just out of curiosity, how do you manage to save the google sketchup pics as JPG files?

Richard

It's pretty straight forward - file-->export-->2D Graphic, and then select the type of image you're after. Even though the files have so few colours, JPG's usually work the best.

cheers,
Dave

Hi Richard,

One more this I should have mentioned about sketchup aftre looking at your MS paint drawings above - there is a dimension tool that you anchor to two points and it tells you the distance between them (funnily enough). If you change the size of the object, the dimension tool changes with it. It's not an overly advanced feature - all CAD/visualisation programs have it, but seeing how you drew it in manually with MS Paint, I thought it would be something you would find useful.

cheers,
Dave

You mean like this..... Thankyou, thats awesome, and yes too easy