1A Design Project: Mjolnir

tldr:

Prototyped Thor's Hammer for my 1A design project that unlocks from its pedestal using a hidden magnetic lock combination

What:

For my first year design project, we were tasked with prototyping a toy. Our team decided on recreating Thor's Hammer, Mjolnir, or as we and Paul Rudd liked to call it, "Jonathan". 

We created the hammer with a locking mechanism inside the handle and a pedestal that the hammer locks onto. Alongside with that, we made a rustic looking bracelet that acted like the key to 'unlock' the hammer from the pedestal.

The concept was that the holder of the bracelet was the "only worthy" person to be able to lift up the hammer. Without the bracelet, no one could lift the hammer up from the pedestal (just like the movie).

Why:

Although the idea of making toy may seem childish, there is a lot of thought that goes behind the process of making a toy. The goal of the design project was to teach us and go through the entire design cycle.

How:

We started off with defining the problem, which in our case was to make a low cost version of Thor's hammer that is safe for kids. We defined all constraints and criteria and proceeded to work on making the prototype.

Our biggest task was to come up with a locking mechanism. Initially, we planned on using an electromagnetic lock, but that proved to be high cost. We settled on a manual magnetic lock. The mechanism is described in the figure on the right

We built the handle out of a PVC pipe and the lock was made from a dowel, magnets and washers. The pedestal also had a weak magnet to keep the lock in place.

A more detailed report of the design is available below.

Report- Thor's Hammer.pdf

What did I learn:

What's next:

1A is over so there is no going back to this project, but this project holds a special place as it was our first big project in University. I had a lot of fun!