Car Wheel Changing Teaching Aid
A school in Derby, which specialises in teaching students with learning difficulties and special needs, asked the Derby Remap panel to provide an unusual teaching aid. The students are much more comfortable learning about practical rather than academic subjects and so one of the courses on offer to them is basic car maintenance. There is no space at the school for a dedicated car for the sole use of students and so some staff have been offering their own cars for use during lessons. This is fine for checking oil, brake fluid and radiator water levels but staff drew the line at students removing and refitting their car wheels!
The solution
The Derby Remap Panel took on the task of building a classroom teaching aid which would enable students to be taught how to remove and refit a car wheel safely. The Toyota car factory at Burnaston, Derby, kindly donated a wheel complete with hub and chrome wheel nuts taken off their production line! A welded steel-framed platform was made, covered in aluminium checker-plate, which supports a horizontal arm pivoted at one end and supported at the other end by a hydraulic jack. The wheel hub is attached horizontally to the mid point of the arm and when the jack is lowered, a tension spring outboard of the jack loads the wheel down on to the platform to simulate the weight of a car.
The benefit
The teacher, had been searching for some time to source such a device and is delighted with the Remap teaching aid. It now permits him to usefully extend the content of his course on car maintenance to the great benefit of his students. A Derby panel member attended one of the classes and saw first hand how enthusiastic the pupils were to not only practice wheel changes but also understand how the device was made.
Toyota plan to use the teaching aid in their own publicity to illustrate their commitment to the local community.
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