Project 2: The Wheels of Words

 3 O’clock
  Almutairi Omar, Awad Peter, Dubovec Josh, Weekley Ali

University of Dayton
School of Engineering
EGR 103- 08

12/8/19

Paper reviewed by: Collin Radca

 Abstract

The team was presented with the opportunity to design and build an On Purpose Play activity off

existing infrastructure with little to no maintenance that encourages caregivers to engage in

“serve and return” playful learning with children aged birth to 5 years old. The objectives the

team wanted to satisfy were to create a serve and return experience, have an educational aspect

and to be engaging for children and adults. Multiple design sketches were made through silent

brainstorming and tour of downtown Dayton. The best four designs from the sketches that

theoretically satisfied the objectives and constraints were selected. Then a decision matrix was

used to determine the best design which was the Rotating Questions. After a few revisions and

additions to the design, the team came up The Wheels of Words. The wheels of words was built

with 5 buckets evenly spaced on a PVC pipe and a sheet of wood with slits cut into it to create a

fill in the blank sentences (Mad Libs). The Wheels of Words was tested for the objectives of

overall functionality, independent spin of buckets and education. All three tests were successful.

The major conclusions drawn from the Wheels of Words was that it allowed for a serve and

return experience, created an educational opportunity that was interactive for children and

adults. 
I. Introduction

The Learn to Earn Dayton wanted for the team to build and design an OnPurpose Play activity

that encouraged caregivers to be engaged in serve and return playful learning with children aged

birth to five years old. The team utilized the websites for Learn to Earn Dayton and Preschool

Promise. The team learned that Learn to Earn Dayton wanted to provide support for the

community and ensure that every child would be ready to learn by kindergarten. The objectives

the team identified were to have at least ten serve and returns, educational, and engaging for

adults and children. The constraints identified were must work within existing infrastructure,

require little to no maintenance and cleaning, be durable and weather resistant if outdoors, and

cost $75 or less to construct. The team’s refined problem statement was to design and build an

On Purpose Play activity off of existing infrastructure with little to no maintenance that

encourages caregivers to engage in “serve and return” playful learning with children aged birth

to 5 years old.

II. Generation of Design Alternatives

The team’s diverse makeup consisted of three males and a female. Each member came from a

different ethnic background and various engineering majors which led to more innovative design

alternatives. The design alternatives were generated from multiple brainstorming techniques.

First, each team member utilized different sources to do research on aspects of the problem.

Secondly, the team toured multiple areas of downtown Dayton to spark ideas and inspiration for

their designs. Each team member brought three designs to an open discussion and as a team the

designs were narrowed down to the best four designs.

Design One: Ball Maze

The Ball Maze consisted of a 4ft by 2ft piece of wood with a maze carved into the wood. The

wood was covered with a sheet of plexiglass to keep the ball within the maze. There were pegs

that went in the side of the wood and extend into the maze. The child and parent would have to

answer the question on each peg then slide the peg out for the ball to drop. Once all pegs were

pulled out and the ball reaches the bottom, the pegs would be pushed back in and the wooden

board would rotate on an axis to restart the maze. 

Section II, Figure 1. Sketch of Ball Maze

Design Two: Pinball

The Pinball design consisted of sheet metal that would be angled upwards to allow for a ball to

drop. On the sheet metal there were obstacles and ramps for the ball to go through. The concept

of the design is to be a pinball machine with a person on each side and the users would be

playing against each other. On each end of the metal would be rods that the user pushes up and

down in order to hit the ball. Inside the design was a ball start that consisted of two rods. The

horizontal rod consisted of the pin balls and the vertical rod intersected the horizontal rod. The

ball would roll into the vertical rod and be shot up onto the playing area peg connected to a

spring.
 Section II, Figure 2. Sketch of Pinball

Design Three: Mini Games

The Mini Games design consisted of a 3ft by 12ft contraption of tic-tac-toe, matching, and sound

bars. The tic-tac-toe would be constructed of poles with rotating cylinders on the pole. The

cylinders had a blank, x and o printed on the outside. The matching game was constructed from

3ft by 7ft piece of wood with sliding panels placed in the wood. Behind each panel would be a

design that the user would have to match with the corresponding design behind a different panel.

The sound bars would be constructed from vertical rods that go from the base and connected to

the bars along the way. 

Section II, Figure 3. Sketch of Mini Games

Design Four: Rotating Questions

The Rotating Questions design consisted of a 4ft by 6ft rotating rectangular prism that had

questions on all four sides. The prism would be constructed from a metal pole in the middle

acting as a rotating axis. On the pole there would be bearings with poles extending from the

bearings. The poles would be connected with four outside walls that would be sheets of

plexiglass with all the questions printed on them. The objective of the design was to have a

conversation between a child and adult by answering questions.

Section II, Figure 4. Sketch of Rotating Questions

III.  Design Selection Process 

After each member of the team created a design, the team decided to come up with the final

design by using a decision matrix. When the criteria were weighted for the decision matrix it was

decided that adult and child engagement along with serve and returns were the most important

factors since these aspects were crucial objectives. After engagement and serve and returns were

ranked highest importance, creating an educational design that was weather resistant and

maintenance free was the next priority. Finally, the other criteria points ranked on the decision
matrix were theft resistance and fitting around existing infrastructure. These criteria points were

all important but not essential for education and engagement, so they were pushed to the lower

end of the weighting scale.

Section III, Table 1. Decision Matrix

After ranking each design, it was evident that all the designs fared well against each other as

possible solutions. Overall, all the designs fared equally in the criteria: maintenance, weather

resistance, theft resistance, built around existing infrastructure, and child engagement. Design

One, the Ball Maze, ranked well in education; however, it lacked in the criteria of serve and

returns as well as adult engagement in comparison to the other designs. Design Two, the Pinball,

showed strengths in serve and returns in addition to adult engagement, but lacked struggled as an

educational design. Design Three, the Mini Games, ranked well in serve and returns and adult

engagement. While is still appeared to be educational, it did not stand out in this category.

Finally, Design Four, the Rotating Questions, like the previous two design ranked well in serve

and returns as well and adult engagement. Furthermore, it is exceeded all other designs in the

criteria of education. After the numbers were added and the designs we evaluated, the Rotating
Questions was decided as the best design. As the numbers showed, Design Four was the

strongest design as it served as an engaging and educational design for both children and

caretakers. The team further revised the concept and structure of the Rotating Questions design

to create the Wheels of Words.

IV.   Final Design

The Wheels of Words design consisted of five buckets that rotated around an inner PVC pipe

that were spaced by outer PVC pipe separators. The outer PVC pipe spacers were a key feature

that assured the buckets stayed aligned and did not move along the PVC pipe as they spun. The

inner PVC pipe was attached to frame posts that sat on a frame foot. Five slits were cut into a

board and attached to the frame posts that were placed in front of the buckets. The board with the

slits also had words written on it. The dimensions of the two wood frame posts were 42” tall, ¾”

thick, and 18” deep. The dimensions of the wood post foot were ¾” thick, 14” long, and 6” wide.

The wooden Mad Libs board attached to the frame posts dimensions was 8 ½” tall, 37 ½“ wide,

and ¾” thick. The inner PVC pipe dimensions was 37 ½” long and 1 ½” diameter. The outer

PVC pipe spacer dimensions was 7” long and 2” thick. The plastic bucket dimensions were 6”

wide and 12” in diameter. The team created a model for the Wheels of Words design.   

Manufacturing

The parts that are made from wood, the board and posts, would not be able to withstand the

outdoor environment and heavy usage. The material would be replaced with a heavy-duty plastic

and/or metal. The choice of metal for these conditions would be either stainless steel or

aluminum. Depending on the production volume, the PVC pipe and the buckets would be cut as

individual pieces, or injection molded. The buckets could be rolled sheet metal with the open
ends being welded. Brackets could be spot-welded to attach the cylinder to the rotating pipe. The

writing could be laser engraved or CNC milled. 

Section IV, Figure 1. Front view of the Final Design

Section IV Figure 2. Front view of the cylinders and PVC piping

 Section IV, Figure 3. Front view of model

Section IV, Figure 4. Top view of model

V. Testing the Design

The team tested the design for overall functionality, function of buckets to independently spin

and education. The overall functionality was tested to see if the design was well put together and

engaging for the user. Five users were asked to fill in the blanks and complete a Mad Libs. The

users then gave feedback on how it functioned. If there were no major concerns then the design
passed. The function of the buckets ability to spin independently was tested to ensure that the

design allowed for the game to be played successfully. To test this the team put a word in each

blank and started with the first bucket and spun it 10 times. Then checked to see all the words in

the other blanks did not move and recorded results. This process was then repeated with the

resulting 4 buckets. If all words were visible, then the design passed test. The educational aspect

was tested to meet the objective of providing an educational experience for the child. Five users

were asked what their learning take away was after completing the Mad Libs. If the takeaway

was that a child could learn to create a story of their surroundings and learn to say and use words

to make a sentence and story, then successful. 

Section V, Table 1. Test Matrix

 VI. Results

The five users provided feedback seen in table 1. The feedback indicated that the Wheels of

Words was easy to use, enjoyable and consisted of no major concerns. The Wheels of Words

successfully passed the functionality test. The reason the design was functional was because of

the design’s ability to be interactive. The design consisted of spinning wheels that both a child

and an adult could spin. The design sparked communication through the ability to pick different

words to fill in the blanks to create a creative story.

Section VI, Table 1. Feedback on the Functionality of the Wheels of Words

Use

r Feedback
1 liked the overall concept
2 harder to read lower ones for tall people, odd sentence
3 more colors (options)
4 really fun, liked it, more options
5 cool, fun to spin, can move from bottom and top which is helpful

The responses in table 2 overall showed that the Wheels of Words created an educational

opportunity that allowed children to learn how to put together words to create a sentence and

then a complete story. The Wheels of Words successfully created an educational experience that

matched the Team’s desired education experience. The design allowed the child to pick from a

variety of words ranging from adjectives, verbs, and nouns. This allowed a child to learn how to

put pieces of a sentence together. The sentences chosen were easy sentences that caused the child

to realize their surroundings and put the sentences together to create a story. By having these

features, the design matched the educational objective the team pursued.

Section VI, Table 2. Responses of the Educational Takeaway from the Wheels of Words

User  Understanding of Education

1 identifying surroundings, story outside of a zoo
2 learning words
helps with perception of the outside world, good for conversation because parents need
3 to help children to read
4 how to structure sentences, verbs and adjectives
5 memory, connecting thoughts together
The Wheels of Words successfully passed the independent spin test. After each bucket was spun

10 times, all the words in the blanks were able to be read. The design consisted of PVC pipe

spacers that went in between each bucket to allow for the buckets to stay in place and spin

independently of each other. The hole that the PVC pipe went through in the bucket was only

slightly bigger than the PVC pipe to allow the bucket to not slide along the PVC pipe and cause
the spacers to move. Although buckets 1, 4, and 5 caused a bucket to shift slightly, this did not

interfere with the visibility of the words. This slight shift is due to the restricted use of using

plastic buckets and the craftsmanship not being as precise as possible.

Section VI, Table 3. Results of Buckets Spinning Independently to Create Mad Libs Test

Buckets Observation of the movement of buckets

1 able to read all words, the bucket to the right shifted slightly
2 able to read all words, no buckets shifted
3 able to read all words, no buckets shifted
4 able to read all words, the bucket to the right shifted slightly
5 able to read all words, the bucket to the left shifted slightly

VII. Conclusion

As displayed earlier with the final product as well as with the results of the test, the Wheels of

Words clearly met all the objectives and constraints that were in place. First, the Wheels of

Words passed all the tests in place by completing targets for both functionality and education.

Next, the Wheels of Words met the objective of being a serve and return design as it involved

interactions from both a child and caretaker. Finally, the Wheels of Words proved to be

interactive and engaging for all parties involved. Overall, as displayed through testing and the

accomplishment of objectives, the Wheels of Words clearly completed all the targets to be an

effective design.

VIII. Recommendations

There were a few recommendations for redesign. What could make the Wheels of Words

significantly better would be the addition of removable Mad Libs sentence panels. At this point

there is only one Mad Libs that can be used, if there could be multiple Mad Libs that could be

interchangeable, there would be more variety with this design. The boards could be age specific

to not have one-year-old children try to do something that is more for a five-year-old. Another
design addition that could bring more variety to this design would be the addition of more

cylinders and more words per each cylinder.

Appendices

Materials List

- 5-Gallon Plastic Bucket x5

- 2” PVC Pipe 10’

- 1½” PVC Pipe10’

- 4’ by 4’ BC Plywood ¾” 

- Screws x10

- Sharpie

- Paper Words

-Double Sided Tape

Cost

The total cost to build the model was $54.16.

Appendices, Table 1. Cost of Materials

5-Gallon Plastic Bucket x5 $25

2” PVC Pipe 10’ $7.13
1½” PVC Pipe10’ $5.13
4’ by 4’ BC Plywood 3/4” $16.50
Screws x10 $0.40
Total $54.16