Home         Materials          Procedure        Design and Testing      Instructions

 

Instructions to Make Your Own Play-dough

         

          Ingredients:

                        4 cups flour

                        4 cups water

                        2 cups salt

                        4 tablespoons cooking oil

           

            Directions:

                        Mix all ingredients in a large pan and heat on a medium heat

                        Mix in food coloring of your choice

                        Stir until dough comes away from the sides of the pan

                        Cool and store in an air tight container

 

Instructions for Children

 

1.      Roll a handful of play dough into a small glob

2.      Press the white cast piece into the play dough with the knob in first

3.      Pull the piece out for a good imprint and set the play dough aside

4.      Have an adult pour the melted paraffin (wax) in the play-dough mold

5.      Once the paraffin is hardened, carefully take the piece out of the play-dough

6.      Repeat steps 1-5 for all three pieces of Mr. Tomato Head

7.      Once all three pieces are made, roll a ball of play-dough to use as the face and use the knobs in the pieces to stick them into the face

 

Instructions for Adult

 

1.      Assist the children in rolling a small, relatively flat glob of play-dough and help the press one of the white cast materials into the play-dough with the knob in first

2.      Help the children carefully pull out the white cast piece to make a good imprint in the play-dough

3.      Set the play-dough aside and repeat with all three pieces

4.      Put aluminum foil coating the inside of the pot

5.      Put some paraffin (crayons can be used in place of paraffin) in the pot with aluminum foil

6.      Heat up the paraffin on the hot plate

7.      Carefully pour paraffin into the imprinted play-dough

8.      Wait until the paraffin cools and hardens (Refrigerating it speeds up the process)

9.      Help the children carefully take the pieces out

10.  The children will roll a ball of play-dough to use as the face and stick the pieces they made out of paraffin into the play-dough to finish their Mr. Tomato Head

 

How To Make the Polyurethane Rubber Mold

 

1.      Make master part by hand using modeling clay or some sort of similar material that is easy to mold, but sturdy.  The master part is the part that you wish to replicate by using the molding process.  Be sure to insert pencils in one side of the master pieces so that the mold can solidify around the pencils to create holes in the mold.    

2.      Place the master part in a small container (pencils facing up) and pour molding mix (Por-A-Mold™ is one retail company that makes this) over the master pieces.  Make sure that all of the master pieces are completely covered by the molding mix. 

3.      Wait approximately 10 hour for the mold to solidify, then remove master pieces from the mold and remove the mold from the container. 

4.      To make the actual master pieces used in the bin, we poured cast material into the rubber mold and waited for it to harden.  This takes approximately 30 minutes and the cast material can be found at most art stores.  The brand name we used is called Smooth Cast™. 

 

 

Carnegie Mellon University

39-245 Rapid Prototype and Design

May 2006