Playcraft Systems · Released playground product

Inclusive Merry-Go-Round

The original merry-go-round offered open-ended movement and play, but participation depended on physical ability. I developed seating, handles, and supporting structure to broaden participation while preserving the shared experience of a spinning platform.

My contribution: Seat and handle development, full-scale prototyping, bracket iteration, and structural validation.
Design challenge: Broaden participation while developing an assembly that could be built and validated.
Outcome: Final rotomolded product released into the catalog and sold worldwide.

01 / Development

Designing for shared play

Competitive research informed the seating and interaction direction. The goal was to broaden participation while preserving the open-ended play of a spinning platform.

Reference: playground merry-go-round in Minnesota on YouTube ↗

02 / Development

Developing the seat

Sketches explored the seat opening, backrest, and support geometry before the design moved into a full-scale physical prototype.

The silver-painted seat prototype was CNC-machined from wood at 1:1 scale. It made the seat geometry and mounting interface available for physical evaluation and assembly.

From seat sketches to a full-scale prototype

Seat sketch — curved backrest and raised sides

Seat sketch — side profile and backrest transition

1:1 scale prototype CNC-machined from wood and painted silver — seat geometry

1:1 scale prototype CNC-machined from wood and painted silver — underside and mounting interface

Explore 20 more seat concepts

03 / Development

Refining the handles

Two CAD renders show the handle development before the final rotomolded handle. The work developed the contact surfaces and their relationship to the central assembly.

04 / Development

Validating the structure

Assembly complexity during the 1:1 prototype build drove the bracket design away from the original horizontal bolt arrangement. I iterated the design through finite element analysis and tolerance analysis, then evaluated the structure through bracket-level and full-product weighted load testing.

Each bracket profile is presented with its corresponding FEA result so the geometry and its analysis can be read together.