Making Cam Toys in Y5

Making Cam Toys in Year 5

In Term 3, we worked on an exciting Design and Technology project. The brief was to design and make a toy with moving parts, using cams, for the 5-7 age group.

Research

Cams can make things move up and down, side to side, or around in circles. We investigated what movement was caused by each cam, watching video clips and looking at existing toys. We then discussed our ideas for what could be moving on our toys.

The Design Process.

As our brief outlined that we had to design our toys for the 5-7-year-old age bracket, we visited Year 2 to do some market research and find out what they look for in a toy. We asked them questions about what characters they liked, favourite colours, sports, and hobbies to help us design something that would appeal to their interests.

We then got down to the actual design. After generating some collaborative ideas with a partner, we each decided on our final design. We recorded and annotated our designs on a large planning sheet. Designing the toy involved a lot of problem-solving: deciding what could be moving, working out how to attach parts, deciding which cam would give the right movement. We also decided to set our moving toy in a scene, with a background, so those decisions had to be made too.

Making the Toys.

We each started with a box to have the cam mechanism inside. We then cut our dowel and chose the cams we needed for the working part of our toy. Some of us adapted cams to make a different shape, like a triangle.

We had enormous fun painting the parts and sticking everything together. The classroom was like a busy toymaking factory! We are so proud of the finished results. Finally, we were able to show our Year 2 friends our finished toys and get some feedback. See photographs of us with our final toys in the gallery.