# anyone have experience making a ramp walking animal toy?



## mainerustic (Jul 20, 2010)

I want to make a heritage toy that's referred to as a ramp walking animal toy. I've seen pictures of them on the web, but I'm not sure how to make one and I'd love to be able to do that for some Xmas gifts. Here's a link to the type of toy I want to build: http://www.realwoodentoys.com/Walking%20Toys.asp

It doesn't look all that difficult, but I'm not sure how to get the mechanics of it to work correctly. Thank in advance for any suggestions, designs, ideas or toy plans.


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## richgreer (Dec 25, 2009)

My guess is that if you could see one for real (not just a picture) you could figure it out. If you cannot find one locally you could always buy one for the purpose of figuring the engineering out.


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## mainerustic (Jul 20, 2010)

Yes, you're probably right, but I'm a bit of a penny-pincher, so I was hoping that I could find a pattern and directions about how to make one. However, I may be forced to untie the ole pursestrings and buy one.
Thanks


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## lew (Feb 13, 2008)

I think this might help


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## Fly (Aug 14, 2010)

There is a lathe turned penguin ramp walking toy in the book "52 Weekend Woodworking Projects" by John A. Nelson. Nelson is a master draftsman, he gives detailed drawings for the project.


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## 33706 (Mar 5, 2008)

I recall plastic ones from the early 60's, usually a four-legged animal or two people one following the other. On an incline, they would tip from one side to the other, the right legs swing forward when the tip is to the left, and vice-versa as it 'walked' down the incline.


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## KentS (May 27, 2009)

When I was at the taping for "Cool Tools" to pick up my Torque Work Centre, Stu, who demonstrated the machine for the show, actually was showing how to make a walking kangaroo. I didn't find it on his web-site-"Stu's Shed". Maybe degoose, aka Larry might have the plan since he and Stu are buddies, and Larry also has a Torque.

http://lumberjocks.com/degoose


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## mainerustic (Jul 20, 2010)

thanks, I'll give Larry a try, I'm still looking for a way to make a ramp walking animal toy for Xmas.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

Mainrustic, I was just wondering if you ever figured out how to make this walking toy. I just watched this video that lew mentioned and I don't think that it would be that hard to make it just by watching the video. I may try to make one because I wouldn't mind having one for my own amusement. I'm just sort of of big kid myself.


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

Looks like it should be pretty easy. Balance needs to be over the 2 legs and the back one a fuzz shorter than the front one.


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## snowdog (Jul 1, 2007)

Yeah , this looks pretty cool and fun for little kids to get. Did anyone find plans? I agree it whould be pretty easy to re-construct but it is always even easier if someone else does ti first <grin>

Christmas is coming 96 dayz left


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## mainerustic (Jul 20, 2010)

Hi,

No, I never did get a chance to make it, got a little distracted with house projects. I haven't given up on the idea though, so if you do make one, it would be great to see how you do it. I have to admit the balance over the legs has me a little intimidated.


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## jusfine (May 22, 2010)

Easiest just to buy one, take it apart and see how it works.

My son used to do that with new toys before he played with them, never could put some back together again…


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

Well, I'm not going to spend $25 on something like that - I have too many tools on my tool list for that; I'm sure that you could build it from Lew's video and you would have to do a little experimenting. It would take you more time than what the $25 would cost you so you wouldn't come out unless you enjoy piddling around with that kind of stuff. Justfine is right about buying it; it would be easier. However, it looks like something that I might enjoy piddling with so I'll remember this thread if I ever run across some free piddling time. However, don't hold your breath because piddling time don't ever come free for nothing.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

If I had a grandchild I would love to make one of these because then it wouldn't be piddling time anymore but we don't have any yet. However, I was just in the shop making some rossettes for a customer and while I was doing so I got to thinking about this little walking duck. For anybody who happens by this thread and wants to make one of these this is the way that you could go about doing it and it would take away some of the experimentation. You would have to have a digital photo of the duck but this is readily available. You could import the photo into a program such as Corel Draw or any other vector graphics program and put this photo on the bottom layer for reference. You could then draw the profile over the bottom layer onto a second layer. This could be accurately done and wouldn't take too long at all. However, your halfway there after doing this. This would also give you an accurate outline for the feet which are really a rocker when the legs are together. With the profile you would already know exactly where the stationary leg would go and how it would be positioned. With a second photo showing the back leg which is the one that pivots you would have two positions of the back leg. Assuming that the pin for the back leg is in line with a center line of the back leg (and I bet that it is) then you could draw a line through the center of the back leg in each position and you would then know where the pivot point is. In the program you can copy and rotate the profiles and position them in several different positions and from this you could get the outline of the cavity that would have to be created for clearance so that the back leg could freely move on the pivot. I would assum again that the top of the pivot leg would be a circular arc because it just makes sense to do it that way. This arc would be part of the cavity.

At this point you could go ahead and cut out a profile of the body halves and make your best guess from the picture how thick to make the legs. The halves would need to be routed out for the stationary leg and the stationary leg would just fit into this rout and would be glued. You would also make the clearance routs in the halves for the back leg and then drill the pivot hole.

There would obviously be a little guess work and experimenting but I don't think that it would be a whole lot of guess work and the first one that you did would probably work but maybe not perfectly. From observation I think that you could use an educated guess by it's behavior as to what changes you could make so the second one worked better. After the third one I believe that you would have the bugs worked out. Then you could make a number of these for all of the children that you know.

From lew's video you could figure out the size from the man's hands and adjust the vector drawing accordingly.

These directions are off of the top of my head and thus are overly simplified but I think that you get the picture. The vector graphics program and the digital photos would make it fairly easy to get close on the first try. Also watching lews video several times would make all of your guess work a little more accurate.

The other way to do it would be to order one and just copy it but that would cost some money and a waiting period to get the duck by UPS. Some people would rather just try to figure it out because that can be fun too.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

SCRATCH OUT EVERYTHING THAT I SAID ABOVE!!!! IT'S TOTALLY THE WRONG WAY TO GO ABOUT THIS.

The key is the center of gravity of the whole object that you want to make walk down the ramp. It could be anything that you want - it doesn't matter. It could be a football with two legs. The key to this problem is Newton's laws of physics. And the key is the video that lew sent us to. Here's a man that understands these laws and he tells us how it works. The relationship between the pivot point of the leg that pivots and the center of gravity of the object (including the leg that doesn't pivot) is what's important. I also would think that the degree of the incline is important. Obviously if it is too steep all hell will break loose. So you just go ahead and set that angle to there because they have determined it to be good with experiments. So when you use this info you can essentially just start from scratch and make any object walk down the ramp in an entertaining manner and it doesn't matter how long the ramp is. This way you can design all sorts of toys that walk down ramps by using the basic principals.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

Mainerustic, I have just watched the video that lew referred us to 3 more times. I don't think that you or anyone else would have much difficulty building this toy walking duck. 1st of all, near the beginning of the video the guy tilts the duck slightly forward and you can see how it is constructed and it's very simply constructed. There is simply a deep dado in the edge of the wood that creates a cavity in which you can mount the stationary leg and the pivoted leg. The stationary leg would be glued into the dado and then the center of gravity would need to be found on the body and the stationary leg as a whole. I would think that you could do this by simply taking a partially sharpened pencil with maybe an 1/8 inch flat point, for example, and clamp it in your vise so that it is vertical and simply by trial and error lay the duck (with his one stationary leg in place) on it's side by trial and error until you get it to balance. This would give you the center of gravity or nearly so. The guy says the center of gravity should be slightly above the pivot point of the moving leg. So that when you set the duck on a flat surface the duck will balance on the pivot almost perfectly.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

Sorry; had to get ready for work and now I'm at work. Anyways, you could take a board that is long enough for 5 or 6 of these ducks and put the dado in the edge. Towards the end of the video watch for the place where the duck is walking down with the front edge slightly towards the camera. From this shot you can get a pretty good judge of how deep the dado is. Then just mark you a few ducks and cut out several bodies. You could then design your legs to work with your dado. When the legs are together the feet will make a rocker. The stationary leg should be slip tight in the dado and the loose leg should have a slight clearance but I don't think that the fit should be real sloppy. The top of the loose leg should have a circular arc so that the corners don't hit the bottom of the dado. Now the nice thing about this is that it is perfect for experimentation to get it just right. Your stationary leg should be slip tight fit so you can probably push your stationary leg in where you think that it should go and I think the top of this leg should be made so that the top of the leg is square and rests against the bottom of the dado. This will help to hold this leg square. However, at this point you should *NOT* glue the leg in place because you may want to move it. This is where you can determine the center of gravity of the body and the leg together with the pencil in the vise. After you mark the center of gravity you can look at where the mark of the center of gravity is. If you will look the two legs should be parallel to each other or nearly so and the little feet rockers nearly touching. At this point you need to hold the pendant leg in place to see if it is about right in relation to the center of gravity. You will be drilling the pivot hole slightly below the center of gravity and on a center line in the center of the leg. If the center line is off to the side of the center of gravity then you will want to shift the stationary leg over so that it puts the center line about right. However, when you move the leg slightly you will also move the center of gravity slightly so you will have to take this into consideration with an educated guess as to how much to move. You will also have to redetermine the center of gravity again. You may have to go through a few trials and errors here but I don't think that it will take to long. When you think that you have it about right you could go ahead and place the pivoting leg in place and drill through the leg and body with whatever size dowel you will use and then remove the pivot leg and very slightly make the hole larger so that it can easily move. At this point I believe that you will be able to actually try the duck out before you glue anything. The dowel should fit tight in the body and this will hold the pivot leg in place good enough. You could take a small drill and drill a hole all the way through the stationary leg and stick a tooth pick or 1/8 inch dowel through the body and leg. The drill should be very slightly larger than the tooth pick so that if the duck doesn't work you can disassemble the duck and make modifications. Since the top of the stationary leg is fast against the bottom of the dado I think the toothpick will hold good enough to try the duck out. If the duck doesn't walk then one of the modifications that you can make is to make the stationary leg a little fatter or thinner on the front edge of the leg. This will slightly change the center of gravity one way or the other and may do the trick. You will probably have to do a little experimenting with the radius of the rocker feet. Before you start to play with the legs you could make several sets of legs to play around with. I know that all of this sounds like it's a complicated process but I don't think that it will be hard to make at all and get it working. Once it works the dowel and stationary leg could be glued in place. You will be able to make the second one more faster than the first and it will probably work better than the first because you invariably learn from the process and make an improvement or two.

I'm sorry about all of that in one paragraph but I wrote it while I was thinking. I think that you should give it a try if you still want to make this duck. In fact, I think that I will make one of these. You could just draw out he pattern for the duck after you determine the approximate size from the duck in relation to the guys hand or you could use the graphics program from the description above to make the pattern. I may be forgetting something or may even be totally off on this. I can't believe I'm totally off. However, you could fill in the blank and fuzzy spots as well or maybe you can just come up with something totally different. I think that before you get started or I or anyone else they should watch the video maybe even 5 or 6 times because the purpose of the video is to explain exactly how this critter works. Also you can learn a lot about it's size and construction. Good Luck.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

There is also a stop which is just behind the pivoting leg to keep the body from swinging so far backwards. This is probably another dowel. This dowel could be put in after the pivoting leg is in place. It's location could be derived from a close observation of the slow motion frames in the video. If you'll notice when the body swings backwards this stop on the body actually causes the whole duck to slide forward maybe a 1/4 of an inch. This is part of what makes the duck walk. The physicists brings all of this out in the video.


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

Watch this long alligator, his front leg isn't at center of balance.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

Topmax, where is the link to the alligator.

BTW, Topmax, check this out.


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

Here it is : 




Wish I had time to make a bunch of those action toys ;-))


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## bigbuddha (Aug 2, 2009)

How about this: http://blog.dugnorth.com/2010/09/plans-to-make-ramp-walking-wooden-rhino.html

I am planning on making something like this for my daughter's birthday party favors. I had picked one up to look at at a children's museum a while back. I think the front leg pivots on a dowel and gravity drives the toy to lean forward and "walk".


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## woodworkdude (Jan 19, 2021)

"Hi there, I am new to Lumberjocks - I see this post is really old. I have made a ramp walker from a video - the developer shows the dimensions during the video and so I paused it and took a screen-shot and printed it out. It worked first time - my wife and I have it in the kitchen and we take the time to play with it now and then. Google Ludic science Ramp Walker, Mechanical Toy that works on Gravity.


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