- [Jared] This toy is called the Poppin' Pals.
It features five doors on top
with a unique way to open each one.
In this video, we'll use 3D animation
to take it apart and see how it works on the inside.
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This video is sponsored by KiwiCo
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Over the years, there's been a few different variations
of the Poppin' Pals Toy.
The one I'm gonna be showing in this video
is from a brand called Playskool.
I'll put a link to the toy in the video description below.
Here's a quick rundown
of how the toy works just in case you haven't seen it.
Five different mechanisms to open the door,
a slider, a switch, button, turnkey, and another switch.
And of course a sweet little animal comes out to greet you
each time the door opens.
Push the doors down to close and they lock shut again.
Simple toy, but yet how does it work on the inside?
Let's take it apart and find out.
On the bottom are several screws,
quite a few of them actually.
Once you take them out the whole thing comes apart.
Let's take a look at the doors first.
Each of the five doors can rotate 90 degrees
with a pivot point coming out right out of the side here.
The top half of the toy case has a slot for each door.
These doors are tricky to fit right inside of here.
The doors are held in place
by small plastic pieces that fit in between each door.
These would fall out quite easily
but when you put it all together
the four pieces are held up by four cylinders on the bottom.
The toy case allows for just enough space
for the door to rotate, open and closed.
When the door closes, it is stopped by the wall here.
And when it opens again, the plastic tabs, stop it here.
This is why the door is limited to a 90 degree rotation.
On the bottom of each door there's a spring
that causes it to rotate to the open position.
Now in this video, you'll see two kinds of springs,
a compression spring, and a torsion spring.
You're probably used to the compression spring.
The more you press down, the more force presses
in the other direction.
The torsion spring works a little different.
It works by twisting, the greater the angle of rotation,
the more it wants to twist back into place.
A great example of a torsion spring is on a clothes pin.
Pinch the very ends and the spring in the middle is twisted.
You can feel the force that wants to pull it back together.
So back to the Poppin' Pals Toy,
each door has a torsion spring that's placed very carefully
behind a small plastic covering.
The end of each spring comes down
and attaches to another wire
that's strung out along the side.
This long wire serves as an anchor for the torsion springs.
When the door is pushed closed
the torsion spring is twisted causing a rotational force
that wants to push the door back open.
This means that if you let it go,
the door will quickly come back open again.
So when the doors are closed
the springs are trying to open it again.
So what keeps them from opening?
That's the job of the five levers on the bottom.
Each of the levers has a compression spring underneath it.
You can see what happens when a door closes
the lever is pushed down until the door goes past it.
Then a compression spring pushes up the lever
and the door is locked into place,
now the door can't open.
But if the lever is pushed down again,
the torsion spring and the door will cause it to go back
to the open position.
All of the levers are identical at the very end,
they hold the door closed in the same way.
But the other end of the levers are all different,
they are made in such a way that five different mechanisms
can be used to push down the levers.
So the doors up here are labeled one through five.
I'll do the same thing down here.
We're gonna call this mechanism one, two, three,
four, and five.
We're gonna go through these one at a time,
starting with mechanism number one.
This is an orange slider that goes back and forth.
Each time it goes past the middle, the door opens.
Let's see what this looks like underneath.
We can see these triangles sticking off
the side of the slider.
On the lever,
it's got a little plastic bumper sticking up here.
From this angle It all starts to make sense.
The orange slider moves across and the lever is pushed down.
When the lever goes down, the door opens right up.
I think it's neat how a side to side motion can be turned
into an up and down motion.
We'll see this in some of the other mechanisms as well.
Okay, mechanism number two.
This one works just like a light switch.
Anytime the switch goes past the middle the door opens up.
Underneath you can see
the pivot points sticking out on the side
and a large plastic edge sticking out the bottom.
The lever has kind of this cavity area down here
with a plastic bump in the middle.
Now let's watch from the side
and see what happens when move the switch.
The bump on the lever is forced to go down.
Let's watch that again.
The lever goes down, which opens up the door.
This works either way the switch has Flipped.
Mechanism number three.
This one is the big purple button.
Not only does it open a door,
it also makes that irresistible squeaking noise
when you press it down.
Underneath, you can see that the squeaker
is right inside of the button.
And just in case you were wondering,
the toy will still work just fine
if you take out the squeaker.
The lever has three notches the button fits right over them.
Nothing special here, no side to side motion,
just press down the button and the lever is pushed down too
and the door opens
Mechanism number four.
This one is the turnkey that makes it clicking noise
when you turn it.
Now all of these other buttons come out
when you take the toy apart.
This pinky does not come out.
It's stuck in the plastic, but yet it's free to rotate.
Here's what it looks like underneath.
On the edge it has jagged teeth sticking out.
Then we have a tiny plastic lever that runs against it.
When it turns this plastic piece clicks
across each jagged edge.
If you really get tired of the noise, you can remove it
and the mechanism will still work just fine.
What makes the door open is the plastic sticking off
at three spots.
You can see it better from another angle here.
On the lever it's got a plastic bumps similar to the others.
When the key Is turned,
the lever is forced down, which opens the door.
Let's see what this looks like from another view.
Now, if you turn the key to just the right spot
and leave it there, the door can't close.
It'll just spring back open.
That's because the lever is stuck in the down position.
Now rotate the key just a little bit and bam
the door will close once again.
Last but not least,
mechanism number five.
Very similar to what we've already seen.
The switch goes back and forth and opens the door each time.
The switch has a plastic piece sticking out the bottom
and the lever has a long plastic Ridge sticking up.
When you flip the switch
the lever is forced into the downward position.
Let's see what this looks like altogether.
Putting the Poppin' Pals Toy back together is easiest
if you put it together upside down
so that all of the pieces stay in.
And luckily the Poppin' Pals Toy
that I used for this video still works just great.
Thanks for asking.
So as you can probably tell
I like taking things apart and learning how they work.
Engineering really fascinates me.
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Thanks for watching my animation.
I hope you enjoyed it and I will see you next time.
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