Cardbard Prototype

To get an idea of how big to make the spaceship play structure, I wanted to build a full scale prototype using some cardboard boxes we saved from Ikea furniture we had earlier in the year. The Ikea boxes were good to use because they don't have picture nor too much design on both the inside and outside of the boxes. After two days of working on this with utility knife and packing tape, I was able to get this prototype build for him.

Testing of the prototype was done by having my son play in it and by inviting his friends over for load capacity testing. It could fit six pre-school kids comfortably, or one adult (me sitting down) and three of them. They all loved it. Some of the older kids were taller and kept bumping their heads on the top, so I needed to take this into account. The cockpit window were too steep, like a VW van so I also needed to give it a little more aerodynamic slant.

As kids played with this, you can see their crayon marks on the back side of the prototype.