Playground Slide Tape Dispenser

SUMMARY:

This item is part of the playground themed office organizer set. Made in collaboration with @Pommedeterre_2915697 and @npoyau_2915673.

There are elements of the slide that are not 3D printable. The razor and roll of tape must be taken from another tape dispenser.

Problem Statement:
Recent analysis by the Staples finance department has concluded that sales for desktop organization products have declined in recent years.  The company would like to ramp up their profits in this area by enhancing the aesthetic nature of these products.  
Your group has been hired to design a set of theme-based organizational products.  Your team will design a set of office supplies that are tied together with a common theme. You must be able to justify how the theme connects the products together.  The idea is that the customer will not want to buy just one; they will want to buy the whole set.
 

Assembly and instructions:

Slide the razor into the slot at the bottom end of the slide. To put the tape in, first put the roll of tape on the rod, then extend the tape. Put the rod (with the tape roll) in its slot in the middle of the slide, making sure to keep the extended tape in the cutout. Now that the tape is in, just pull the tape to use it, and press the button on the side to take the roll out.

Design Choices:

Our team spent three days in class just on planning! Our original idea was a shorter slide. It would have more efficiently encased the tape dispenser, but it didn't look that much like a slide. We looked at existing tape dispensers for design inspiration, but we came up with our own original concept that uses a rod going all the way through. On the side that the tape enters, it sits flush and looks more like a slide. On the other side, there is a button (the same rod) that pops the tape out when pushed. Our original design looked more like a slide than a regular tape dispenser, but it was not up to our standards:

We decided that the way to make it look more like a slide was to add an extra S curve to the slide profile. To make it smooth, we did not just use lines and chamfers, but rather four tangent arcs set to have an equal radius. With those relations, no dimensions were needed. This is what it looked like when implemented in Solidworks:

We also decided to add railings to make it look more like a slide.

Our original railings could not be swept because the half ellipse intersected with the bottom line, enclosing two shapes instead of one. We fixed this by raising up the sides by a very small amount:

However, this made the razor not reach anymore, so we had to edit the step which creates the slot for the razor.

Next, we decided to fillet sharp corners and and we cut most of the excess body out from the back. This left it looking more like a slide but still a bit awkward:

So, we decided to remove the middle legs and fillet some more.

Finally, we added ladder rungs to the back to make it look amazing and a hole in the side to make it compatible with the rest of the set.