Origin of the project:

Rotadraw is a nice activity for kids from age 4+ as for adults, similar to the classical “lining the dots”.

It consists into simple steps: 

1. Lining up the notch in the stencil with the mark on the holder.

2. Rotate the marking No. 1 to the top and trace the line with the No.1 next to it.

3. Rotate the marking No. 2 to the top and trace the next line.

4. Repeat these steps to reveal the full drawing.

Rotadraw was voted the Educational Toy of the Year in Britain in 1969

While many designs and themes were commercialized at the time on sets of 150mm discs,

two makers published on Makerworld many models of 120mm Rotadraw discs under their own “branding”:

• Doodle discs by Stringham (119 high quality models to date)
• Twist Art by THIMM1 (85 models to date)

Maker Stegz also designed additional Doodle discs designs (45 models to date)

Here is also the link to a nice & practical box to store 120mm Rotadraw discs

I decided to adapt my Spirograph base for holding A4 paper in place to conveniently accomodate those 120mm Rotadraw discs, and make the whole experience even better

Purpose of the design:

What has always upset me as a kid … and what often discouraged my kids when doing Spirograph, Rotadraw or any other kind of creative craft, is when the piece of paper your crafting on suddenly & unexpectedly decides to move while you alrdeady spent quite a long time perfecting your design…

 …wasting in one instant all these efforts.

The purpose of my model is two-fold:

1. holding a piece of A4 paper in place to prevent it from moving unexpectedly

2. preventing the rotating disc to slid-out… and ruin our pieces of art

This model is designed to work with any 120mm Rotadraw / Twist Art / Doodle discs you could find or 3d-print (see the provided web links). You can even produce your own designs (see next section).

How to use it:

1. Place a piece of A4 paper in the base

2. put the Rotadraw adapter on top of the paper to prevent it from moving

3. place the desired disc in one of the dedicated cavity

4. align the 1 with one of the marks on the cavity sides. This will be your reference notch

5. trace the line/shape with the No.1 next to it

6. rotate the disc up until the next numbered notch faces the reference notch, and trace the next line/shape

7. repeat until the whole drawing is revealed

Refer also to the attached photos to discover how to use it.

Note that most discs have a rectangular frame directly imprinted on the stencil. This frame shows you exactly where the drawing will be located on your piece of paper when notch #1 is aligned to the reference notch. 

This is the reason I created multiple notches on the side of the cavities. This is super useful for placing multiple stencil drawings next to each other on the same page.

To maximize the use of your A4 paper, you can even turn the Rotadraw adapter upside-down to reach the other quadrants of the paper (see photos). You can also turn the paper to cover it with doodles :-)

To try it is to adopt it !

Have fun … and maybe have a look at my Spirograph base for holding A4 paper in place 

If you want me to provide an adaptor for an other disc size, offer me a coffe, and I will gladly adapt the model to your specific needs.

Making your own designs:

In case you want to make your own designs, here are a few resources I was able to gether:

• Nice video on How to make a Rotadraw
• Excellent example by Adrien Cosson on how to make a Rotadraw directly in Onshape.
  This is a public document, so you can duplicate it to start your own creations.

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