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Outdoor Play Tower for Special Needs Child

A custom play structure that meets the very particular needs of our 9-year-old with seizures and developmental delays.

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I am designing an outdoor play structure for our child who has seizures and developmental delays. Commercially-available structures have key drawbacks for his unique case, so this is primarily a design problem. The construction itself should be pretty straightforward. He loves to play outside and he loves to climb, so making a safe and fun structure would be a big upgrade for him (and for us).

I am also using this project as an excuse to learn FreeCAD using Assembly4.

=== DESIGN (updated 7/10/2021) ===

To minimize splinters, I switched to composite decking at the floor and platform levels. I also tweaked the dimensions of everything after modeling the basic frame in FreeCAD. After some comments about the high winds of Colorado, I also increased the depth of the concrete pads to 24" below (plus about 6" below grade already for the first level supports).

Incremental (mm) Cumulative (mm) From Ground (mm)
0
Concrete Pads 24 609.6 24 609.6
Floor 2x6s 5.5 139.7 29.5 749.3
GROUND LEVEL 0 0 29.5 749.3 0 0
Floor decking 1 25.4 30.5 774.7 1 25.4
Level 1 clearance 58 1473.2 88.5 2247.9 59 1498.6
Platform 2x6s 5.5 139.7 94 2387.6 64.5 1638.3
Platform decking 1 25.4 95 2413 65.5 1663.7
Level 2 clearance 36 914.4 131 3327.4 101.5 2578.1
Roof railing supports 3.5 88.9 134.5 3416.3 105 2667
Roof peak 15 381 146 3708.4 116.5 2959.1

=== DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS (original) ===

I want to have ample clearance under the raised platform so he doesn't hit his head. He's about 4'7" tall, so I'll add a few inches to that.

No sharp edges - every corner needs to be rounded off.

Minimize splinters - sand and seal every piece of wood he could touch.

His two favorite playground activities are slides and climbing walls. I will have the climbing wall at a slight angle so it's still fun but a bit less dangerous for him.

He knows when seizures are coming, and he seeks a place to sit safely - especially corners. For this reason, I will make the climbing wall and slide on the same side of the platform. That will provide him with three safe walls and two corners he can lean against.

We need to keep visual contact pretty much all the time, so the structure needs to be designed accordingly. The slide has to be open-top instead of fully enclosed. The railing on the raised platform needs to be a bit further spaced out than normal, but I will add plexiglass to provide a see-through protective layer he can lean against. Also, the lower side facing our house will be open so we can see him underneath the play tower.

We don't want him to be able to climb out of the play tower, so the railing and plexiglass on the platform needs to go at least four feet up (or all the way to the roof). I will drill a fair number of small holes in the plexiglass to enhance ventilation.

He loves to dig, so I will make the raised platform home to a sandbox structure. Instead of sand, I will use some kind of rubberized mulch so he doesn't get super dirty.

He loves tools, but he's also prone to walking off with the tools. One side of the lower level of the structure will have an area he can "saw" and screw and hammer, but all of the components will be physically attached to the play tower so they don't walk off.

He likes to sit comfortably, so I will hang an outdoor mostly-enclosed hammock chair under the covered part of the platform.

He loves the wall-mounted play sets (like moving pieces around on a map where the slots in the map determine where you can move the pieces). One side of the lower level will have modular panels so I can keep it interesting. I have a laser cutter, so I am exploring custom wall-mounted play set designs I can make myself.

We don't want the area under the tower to become muddy, so I will make a layer of sand and gravel for drainage, covered by an artificial turf that also drains. This should provide a comfortable surface that doesn't get too muddy.

x-extension-fcstd - 12.16 kB - 07/09/2021 at 05:34

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Playscape Assembly.FCStd

Main FreeCAD Assembly (uses Assembly4 Workbench)

x-extension-fcstd - 15.13 kB - 07/09/2021 at 05:34

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  • We're Gonna Need A Bigger Hole

    Cody07/14/2021 at 04:36 0 comments

    So now that I have the reference post, I realized that my holes were slightly off. So today I expanded the overall hole to enable the next two posts to be placed square with the reference post. I also wasn't satisfied with the post hole for my reference post, so I added a few inches to the diameter of the other post holes.

    Tomorrow I will try to place the posts and keep them as close to square as possible. My theory is that the distance between the two post corners should be close to the calculated diagonal distance from my plans. I got really annoyed with FreeCAD, and I was too tired to do trigonometry, so I spent about a minute sketching the post placement in Inkscape so I could measure the interior corner-to-corner diagonal distance.

    Obviously this isn't going to be accurate enough to be exactly 74.95", but we'll call it 75" +/- 0.5" and hope for the best. Which probably means I'll be posting about I couldn't achieve that precision either without digging even more :-)

  • Reference Post

    Cody07/14/2021 at 04:31 0 comments

    I really want to try to get the posts close to square, so I'm going to use this as my reference post. From here I hope I can measure and square the next two posts, followed by the final corner.

  • Roots..Why did it have to be roots (and clay)?

    Cody07/11/2021 at 00:45 0 comments

    As someone pointed out, 18" deep for the 4x4 posts might not be enough to handle the high winds of Colorado. So I am now at least 6" under grade for my lower "deck" supports, and I increased the depth of the post holes to 24" (plus the 6" below grade). The most annoying aspect of this decision was dealing with the immense number of roots and the sticky clay that I had to manually scrape off my post hole digger blades each time I brought them up. At least my shoulders are stronger now!

  • Digging Begins!

    Cody07/09/2021 at 05:40 0 comments

    Digging begins! The supplies are finally supposed to be delivered tomorrow after more than a month delay.

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Dan Maloney wrote 06/03/2021 at 20:40 point

I built a playscape when the kids were small, and I was appalled by how badly the wood splintered, no matter what I did. I think it's just an unavoidable fact with lumber made from essentially force-grown trees. It would be nice if there were some kind of composite material for structural elements, something like a mix of resins and sawdust that could be extruded into smooth, strong, sturdy members.

Don't mean to discourage, just hate to see you put a lot of effort in only to have to hunt for splinters constantly. Or maybe you'll have better luck than I did, or start with better lumber. Good luck!

  Are you sure? yes | no

Cody wrote 06/03/2021 at 22:19 point

That's a good point. I'm leaning toward a switch to composite decking with grooves so the screws never have to penetrate the top. With the top and bottom flooring composites, that should take care of most of the splintering (I hope). Thanks!

  Are you sure? yes | no

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