Counting Toy

Background 

Current “simple” mechanical calculators are outdated, clunky, and not targeted for young educational use. Our design targets children beginning to learn the fundamental components of addition and subtraction. This places our target age range at 5-7 years. We also chose not to include negative numbers within our design to prevent confusion for children only learning the basics of addition and subtraction.

The design is composed of primary colors and housed within a fun robot to encourage a child to play with it and encourage learning. Furthermore, we used polyethylene to construct our parts since it is commonly used among children’s toys due to its low cost and non-toxic properties. This material can also withstand varying temperatures, moisture, and chemical contact, so the design is safe to use indoors and outdoors. Our design is simple, easy to use, and fully mechanical so that it can be used for the entirety of a child’s educational development.

Functionality

The design is constructed of six components. A robot encasing houses the spinning mechanism to ensure no loose components and to protect the device from breaking. The central spinning mechanism is composed of an Axle that displays the first number in an addition or subtraction equation and all the solutions to 0 to 9 +/- 0 to 9, excluding negative numbers. Then a Number Cover slides over the part of the Axle with the possible second term of the equation the child makes and the solutions. Adjacent to the list of potential second terms 0 to 9, extruded cuts are ordered in a linear diagonal pattern corresponding to the solutions aligned right below the Number Cover on the Axle. As the child turns the Crank connected to the Axle and the Crank connected to the Number Cover, different combinations of addition and subtraction equations are constructed. The geometry of the Number Cover and the order of the answers on the Axle allows the solution to any addition or subtraction equation from 0 to 9 to be displayed. For example, if 4 + is displayed on the axle and 4 is displayed on the Number Cover, the extruded cut will only make 8 visible to the child.