Creating and developing the model

The complete development lasted more than 4 months. What started as an evening entertainment, soon became a full time job which occupied about 5 hours a day. Hard to believe? Lets have a closer look.

The main reason of such a big time consumption is a fact, that it is a manually developed model. Although with a help of computer, but without any 3D applications. Models developed virtually in 3D applications have one serious disadvatage. You can construct almost anything but in the end the final model can be practically impossible to assemble. The 3D programs does not force you to think about the model. The computer also does not take into account particular physical characteristics of paper and the limits of your cumbersome hands which will attempt the assembling.

On the other hand, when you develop the model manually with the real paper, and every join has to be assembled many times over and over in many different ways to choose the best one, the result is very entertaining and intuitive to assemble.

Wheel difficulties
A wheel is an essential element of all vehicles and in case of quadrycycle it is probably the most characteristic feature. My first version of a wheel was naturally rounded. What other shape it could have ofcourse. Unfortunatelly the quad looked rather like a carriage this way. So I made the wheels wider, which however made the model look more like a steam-roller. The circle was also very hard to cut out and to glue.

For a while I experimented with bended parts reminding rounded spinwheel (air vessel), which looked very impressive, but too futuristic and not very quad like. But why to invent something what has been already many times invented. I found my inspiration on internet, which resulted in regullar hexagon with skewed edges. This kind of wheel was as chubby as I wanted. But it still missed something.

The wheel needed a adeeper wheeldisc. There were many ways to do it but as the most efective appeared to be just one. To add the wheeldisc from inside, so that outside would remain everything smooth. Though this feature involved some problems with connection to the axle. So I redesigned the whole system of wheel assembling which then remained open all the time and in the end you only clap the a with disc inside.

Instructions and manual
Similar development encaoutered almost all parts. When the quad finally became quite usable, I had to face a new problem. As the developer of the model, I could assemble it even blindofld. But at that time I already wanted to provide the model to other people so it was necessary to add assembling signs and cut line indications. So that everyone could easily learn, what to cut, what to bend, etc.

It souds easy, but when you consider that even the single wheel consists of more than 100 different lines, there was really enough work to deal with. When I get to the graphical assembling manual, the mentioned absence of 3D programm provided another disadvantage. I soon gave up trying to take photos of each part, because I really could not set the same shooting angle for every part. So I manually retraced outlines of each part from the assembled model and It at least looked like a sophisticated 3D model.

Confounded textures
At the beginning I thought that textures would be a piece of cake. I simply shoot the quad from all angles, cut the photos and stick them to each part. Again I was very much mistaken. This could work, if the model had a shape of a flat cube. But with al those foldings it couls not be done this way.

In addition the shape of the model did not fit any real quad. And the main problem is a simple fact, that I would have to dissassemble a real quad to take some pictures, because its parts are overlaying and partly covering each other. In the end everything was solved somehow except one thing. Again the wheel. You can not take a picture of rounded things and put it on flat surfaces. That is why the tyre had to be completely retouched and I am really proud of the result. If you would cut it and assembled it with tenths milimeter precision, each stump on the tyre would smoothly link to each other. However in practise it is very hard to achieve. But the wheel will look good even when your scissors or hand would mislead a bit.