Sliding Into the Journey Head First!

First of all, I have to admit that my idea for this project was inspired by Pinterest. Unfortunately my creative juices weren't flowing and there are time constraints on when this project is due, so I had to seek out my resources. As I searched ideas on Pinterest, I came across an idea that I thought would be perfect - creating a water slide out of paper towel/toilet paper tubes, straws, and aluminum foil. This idea stuck out to me because I have spent this summer nannying two girls who are super creative and love these tiny toys called Tsum Tsums. When I saw the slide idea, I thought that this could be a water slide for their Tsum Tsum toys. Unfortunately, I could not test out this product with the actual toy pieces as I created my prototype after the completion of my last day nannying the girls. Another reason why I chose this idea was because I had all of the supplies that I needed to create this product already at my house. All I needed were paper towel/toilet paper tubes (which I always save for craft purposes for my classroom anyways), tape, straws, and aluminum foil. While going through the process of creating this product, I followed the general idea that I saw in the image on Pinterest, but I made some alterations when it did not work in the way that I though it would as the process evolved. Below are pictures that give a snapshot of the stages that my product wen through to get to the final piece. First, I gathered some of the supplies that I needed.

Then, I created a ladder for the slide out of straws and tape, cut toilet paper tubes to create the shape of the slide, and used a paper towel tube to help create a base for the straw ladder and tube slide to lean on and connect to.

Next, I wrapped the toilet paper tubes that I put together to form the slide shape in aluminum foil. The reasoning behind wrapping the tubes in the aluminum foil was because it made the slide waterproof. I thought the product would be finished at this point, but I wanted it to be able to stand on its own. In this form, the product was not able do that as you can see in this image.

In order to make the product more sturdy so that it could stand on its own, I began by cutting small slits in the bottom of the paper towel tube base and folding them outward to create a wider bottom. That still wasn't enough to help it stand on its own, so I added straws that connected the paper towel tube base to the bottom of the toilet paper tube slide. This addition allowed the product to finally stand on its own, however, when I did this, the bottom of the slide was not able to fit over the lip of the bowl that I used as the "pool" that the slide flows into. Therefore, I had to cut the straws that I attached from the base to the bottom of the slide and add smaller straw pieces in between that had the capability to bend over the side of the bowl. The final,successful product looking like this:

I even tested out the product's capability to hold up to water since it is, in fact, and water slide. You can view the product's success in this video clip.