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When arranging the territory of a suburban area, it is worth thinking about an interesting design for the children's playground. Of course, this question is relevant for families with small children, but it’s worth trying for grandparents, whose grandchildren come to visit them all summer. Often adults resort to a standard solution to the problem by buying a plastic container for sand in the store. Would a child be interested in such a sandbox? To entice your child to play, you need to take an unconventional approach to solving the problem with the playground. As an option, any child will like a sandbox machine.
Where to put a machine with sand on the site
A play structure in the form of a car is no longer just a sandbox, but a full-fledged object for decorating the interior of the yard. The car must be positioned so that it does not stand out as a separate structure, but harmoniously complements the surrounding environment.
However, it is important to take into account that decorating the yard is good, but we must remember the rules for placing a sandbox for children, and they should be followed:
- It is optimal to place the sandbox machine in a partially shaded area. It is better if the playground is illuminated by the sun in the morning and plunged into shade by lunchtime.The morning sun's rays are not so dangerous for humans, and they will quickly warm up the sand that has cooled at night. If there is no suitable place in the yard, the car can be placed in the sun, and an awning can be pulled over the body to shade the sand. You can make such a canopy with your own hands in a couple of hours. It is enough to install four poles and attach a piece of tarpaulin or any other material to the tops.
- The wind is not the best friend of children playing in the sand. Small grains of sand will constantly clog your eyes and settle in your hair and clothes. In a draft, a child will generally catch a cold all the time. It is advisable to place the sandbox machine in a place slightly blown by winds.
- A children's playground with a sandbox should always be in sight of adults. Parents need to at least occasionally supervise their children as they play.
- When building a sandbox for a car, parents should take into account that the car is for children, and it will not save the sand in the back from dirt and rainwater. The structure cannot be installed in lowlands that are flooded with the slightest rain. The car is parked on a flat area, or better yet, on a hill.
- If there is a pond in the yard or ornamental poisonous plants grow, you should stay away from these places. After all, there are no guarantees that even the most obedient child will not get out of the car and go looking for adventure.
Having well understood these simple rules, parents will protect their child from unforeseen situations.
What kind of sandbox will we build?
It’s probably stupid to pose such a question, because we decided that it would be a sandbox machine, and not a ship or other structure, that would be standing in the yard. But the car can be different. There are many ideas for making sandboxes in the shape of cars.You can quickly put together a box from boards that resembles a body, and attach something similar to it in front, resembling a cabin, into which a child cannot even climb. Well, who needs such a sandbox? Unless it’s a parent trying to check the box for the proper upbringing of a child.
It’s another matter if you approach the construction of a sandbox machine with all your heart. A box of sand can be placed in an ambulance, fire truck, crane, etc. The structure of this design itself is almost the same. It is important to think about the design of the frame: choose paints that match the brand of the car, attach some part from a real car, take care of license plates, headlights, etc.
An important condition for creating a sandbox in the form of a car is a comfortable cabin. This part can be called the highlight of the design. It will be interesting for a child to climb into the cabin of a car, steer, press pedals, flip switches. This entire imitation can be assembled with your own hands from trash lying around in the garage.
Material for making the machine
The main material when building a sandbox in the form of a car is wood. However, here we can mean not only edged boards, but also OSB boards and plywood.
You can cut out entire machine parts from a sheet of plywood or OSB. In the end, all that remains is to fasten them together. This kind of work is not easy for a beginner. Here you will have to accurately construct the drawings, transfer them to a sheet, and then cut out all the fragments of the car with a jigsaw.
A simple and traditional material for most work is board.It is convenient to use it to make a car body under the sand. If you show a little imagination, you will get a comfortable cabin. It happens that after construction there are no extra scraps left at home, then you will have to buy a board. You don’t even have to worry about the exact calculations. There is no such thing as an extra board. Over time, you will want to make a bench, swing or table on the playground.
For such work, they usually buy pine boards. It is easy to process, but quickly turns black from moisture. To protect the wood from rotting, all workpieces are impregnated with antiseptic solutions. The board for the sandbox machine is used with a thickness of 25–30 mm. You will also need a beam with a cross section of 50x50 mm. The car can be raised above the ground so that the wheels rotate. To do this, the machine is placed on four concrete supports, and the lower frame is made of thick timber with a section of 100x100 mm. But such a car is difficult to manufacture, and we will not dwell on it.
Now let's move on to the materials that will help give the sandbox machine an aesthetic appearance. Let's start with the wheels. The easiest way to solve the problem is with old tires. The tires are buried halfway close to the car body. If you want something unusual, you can take wheels from a wheelbarrow and, together with the shaft on bearings, attach them to the car body. Just so that they rotate, the machine will have to be built elevated above the ground.
You can make your own car cabin from the same boards or cut it out of plywood. A visit to a scrap metal collection point will help make things easier for parents. Here you can find and buy an old truck cab. Of course, it is impossible to deliver her home without the appropriate equipment, but this option will make the child happy.A seat must be made inside the cabin; you can attach a real steering wheel or bend an imitation out of a tube. Old switches and buttons are attached to the panel, and the child will be more surprised by the flashing LEDs from Chinese toys.
If it is possible to attach pedals inside the cabin, this will generally be happiness for the baby. Then the question will arise where he will spend more time: in the cabin or in the sandbox.
Making a sandbox machine from a board
As the simplest option, we will first consider the process of making a machine from an edged board with our own hands. Let's remember that we are still building a sandbox, so we focus on the box. We will now build the cabin out of scrap materials.
Manufacturing and installation of a sandbox box
So, the first thing we need to do is make a sandbox box, which in our design doubles as a car body. Adults know that sand is a favorite place for toileting for yard animals. In order for a child to play in clean sand, the box must be made with a lid.
The photo shows an interesting and simple drawing of a box with a lid. It consists of two halves, attached to opposite sides with door hinges. U-shaped blanks are bent from two tubes. When the lid is closed, the child can use the structure as a handrail when playing with the machine. When the lid of the sandbox is opened, the two halves turn into benches or tables, and the bent tubes act as legs.
It is easier to cut the lid halves from the OSB board, but you can knock down the panels from boards no thicker than 20 mm. Flanges with mounting holes are welded to the ends of the bent tubes. They are screwed to the lid with self-tapping screws or bolts.
And now let’s proceed directly to making the machine’s sandbox box with our own hands:
- Our car body will be square. Let's settle on the size of 1.5x1.5 m. This sandbox is enough for three kids to play. A square measuring 1.8 x 1.8 m is marked out on the site for the box. With a sharp shovel, all the turf soil is cut off to a depth of 30 cm.
- The bottom of the resulting pit is covered with a 10 cm layer of sand or gravel. The top of the pillow is covered with geotextile or black agrofibre. Whatever the cover of the car's sandbox, there will be a gap somewhere or they will forget to cover it, and rainwater will wet the sand. The drainage layer will help remove moisture into the soil, and the covering material will prevent germination weed in the back of the car.
- A square box is assembled from boards. For reliability, a connecting groove is cut out at the end of each workpiece. The height of the body is 30–35 cm, so the number of boards per side depends on their width. The final result should be a wooden box, like in this photo.
- Now we need to attach legs to our sandbox. To do this, take a beam with a cross-section of 50x50 cm, and cut four blanks 70 cm long from it. The legs are attached to the corners of the box at the same level as the edge of the sides. The lower part of the posts is treated with bitumen so that they remain in the ground longer.
- Now all that remains is to dig holes under the legs, pour 10 cm of crushed stone on the bottom and install the sandbox box in its permanent place. The holes are tightly filled with earth. There is no need to concrete them, since the car does not experience any special load in the sandbox.
We have the lid of two halves ready, now all that remains is to attach it with hinges to the wooden sides.
We attach the cabin and other elements of the machine
So, the sandbox itself is 100% ready, but you can’t call it a machine.Now is the time to ask your child what brand of car he prefers. The shape of the cabin will depend on this. It is more difficult to make it from boards. The photo shows two simple sandbox designs in the form of a truck and a racing car.
A truck is shown on the left. The machine's cabin is made of metal pipe with a diameter of 15–20 mm. The frame is connected by welding, after which it is dug in close to one of the sides of the sandbox. The rear and front walls of the car, as well as a small roof, are cut out of plywood or OSB, after which they are fastened with hardware to the frame. On the back wall, two pieces of tube or angle are welded perpendicularly to the pipe posts. For reliability, they can be connected to semicircular handrails, as shown in the photo. A board is laid on the welded pieces of pipes. This will be the seat.
Next, all that remains is to attach the steering wheel to the front panel and decorate the entire car. Headlights with wheels can be simply painted on or cut out of plywood and then painted.
The photo on the right shows an example of making a racing car. The cabin is replaced by a front end with a hood made from two thick pieces of round logs. The steering wheel is attached to the left blank, and an imitation gas tank cap is screwed on top with a self-tapping screw. In front of the cabin, the driver's seat is fixed from a board to the sandbox box. The wheels of a racing car are made from dug-in tires.
Video of the sandbox truck:
Colorful plywood sandbox in the shape of a car
To make a sandbox machine, you can use OSB board or plywood 18 mm thick. Here you will need drawings with exact dimensions.The aesthetics of the structure depend on correctly cut blanks. The photo shows a sandbox car consisting of two parts. The body and cabin are made separately, then they are connected. According to the presented drawing, you can cut the sheet into the required fragments.
The machine blanks are cut out with a jigsaw, after which all ends are carefully sanded with sandpaper. Metal corners and hardware are used to connect car parts. Another diagram in the proposed photo will help you understand the order in which all the pieces are connected.
When the sandbox car takes on a complete look, an old steering wheel from a passenger car is installed inside the cabin. The hood cover is secured with door hinges to make it interesting for the child to play with it.
The finished plywood sandbox is decorated with multi-colored paints. At this stage, wheels, headlights and other parts of the car are drawn.
Once the car has been installed in its permanent location, all that remains is to fill it with sand and give it to the children. Let them begin their exciting journey in a toy car carrying a full load of sand.
