A classic sandpit made from simple, cheap, and durable materials.

Safety Considerations //

This plan is designed to be used in conjunction with your appropriate,

local safety guidelines / standards and the advice of local skilled builders /
engineers.  If your location has no guidelines or standards, we have
provided a summary of many of the most common hazards in our
"Playground Safety Manual."

This plan is for pre-school (4+) and school-age children, and are not
designed for babies and toddlers. Designs will need to be redesigned for
these age groups. This element must have a clear safe fall zone of
1500mm (5’) around it. Dome headed bolts or other fixing that reduces
tripping should be used throughout this element.
 

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NOTE: this element is not necessarily a balancing element but more of a
team element and thus only a little movement is required. If it moves too
much children will be less likely to try for fear a larger child will catapult
them off the element.

Materials //

20 Truck tires

30 Large Bolts with nuts and washers (washer should

be 75 mm – 3” wide)

Tools //

Shovel

Drill w/ Bit

Adjustable Wrench Utility Knife

Instructions //

1. Create a circle by placing 10 tires flat on the ground in a circular

shape. Place 10 more tires on top of these, do you have 10 stacks, two
tires high.

2. Cut the sidewalls off of all the top tires.

3. Connect the top layer of tires to the layer on the bottom by drilling
two holes and inserting two bolts. Also connect the tires side by side by
drill two holes at each intersection point with the tire beside it. Attach
using two bolts per intersection point.

4. Fill the holes of the tires with sand first, and then fill the pit itself
with sand.

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Add to Your Sandpit //

The "Loose Parts Manual" is chalk full of tips

and tricks to guide you through creating an
amazing space for play using everyday
simple materials like sticks, stones, wooden
spoons, and cardboard boxes. It's the
perfect addition to a sandpit.
Get your free copy:

playgroundideas.org/loose-parts-manual

Sand Water Sand Water

Pipes Table Extended

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Instructions author: mandel mertz © www.playgroundideas.org
 x30
3 in
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work). You may not use this work for commercial purposes without explicit permission. You
may not alter, transform, or build upon this work but you may create and add new work to the
PlaygroundIDEAS design library to share. To view a copy of this license, visit
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x20
Disclaimer:
These plans are designed to be used in conjunction with with the step by step text instructions of this model that can
be found here: http://playgroundideas.org/content/basic-page/playground-designs . The intended use of the designs
available on these plans and the website is to provide ideas for the construction of playground equipment from local
and/or recycled materials. They may, or may not, be suitable for your purposes. Further, specialised knowledge may be
required to construct safe playground equipment based on these designs—for example, engineering knowledge to
allow selection of appropriate strength materials for the purposes to which those materials are put, or playground
layout expertise to avoid layouts which might cause risk of injury to users. The use of local and/or recycled materials
carries inherent risks. Before using recycled materials in playground construction you should consider the source and
properties of the materials (strength, contaminants, splintering risk, etc) and whether they are fit for use in a
playground. Improper construction and use of playground equipment may cause death or injury.
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1

x10

(10 “)

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3 4

SAND

© www.playgroundideas.org
 1500mm / 5’

© www.playgroundideas.org