Mechanisms

	This is an easy little mechanism, the piece of dowel at the top of the fork lift has two larger pieces of dowel glued onto the ends as winding handles, (theses are orange). The thin piece of dowel has a hole drilled in it with a string threaded through and the string is attached to the fork lift platform, all the child has to do is turn the orange handle and the fork lift will go up. Look at the wheels I think they are plastic. If they are solid they will have been injection moulded, if they are hollow they will have been injection blow moulded. Animations on injection moulding are here Animations on injection blow moulding are here
Look at this little beauty. Its a simple cam which makes the chicken move. Notice how the cam has a vertical cut away so that the follower (that's the stick bit), drops down very quickly instead of returning to position gradually. A bit clever I reckon. Don't forget the follower will have to be connected to the chicken so that it can go round and round and the chicken is also connected to the stand so that it can rock on it.
	Using the animations opposite you can see that different shaped cams can produce different effects. What would happen with a heart shaped cam? What would happen if you tried to turn the chicken in the wrong direction? Well, I'm only asking!! Just think if any one of these cams was fixed to the axle of a child's pull or push toy as the axle went round the cam could be made to operate the follower to move something (say the face in the animation below).
What if you had this sort of mechanism connected to the wheel of a child's toy. As the toy was pulled along the face could be made appear and disappear in front of a round window. Its just a thought by little ol' me.
	A bit like the one above. But instead of being connected to face it could be connected to a switch so that each time the wheel went round it touched the switch and made something happen. A light coming on or a noise being made, or both (have you got your sound on?)
What if you had a pulley system connected to the wheels of a toy car. As you push the car it could turn the pulley which could in turn make something else go round. Look at the animations opposite and try to think of a way you could use them to make a toy more exciting for a child.

If you want to see other types of linkage stuff look here