EQUIPMENT
1 large cardboard box, 1 smaller cardboard box, pieces of cardboard, duct tape in grey/silver, scissors, tin foil (or silver paper, or paint if you dont mind waiting), a tumble dryer pipe for arms, odds and ends as decoration/buttons, imaginationTape the big box together securely but leave one end open. Work out where the head will go and cut out a circle. Cover the edge with duct tape so no sharp edges.
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| the kitten helps cut out the head! |
Next you need to cut out some of the base (so child can get into the robot once it's all sealed). Don't go all the way to all sides as it will loose it's strength. As with the head go
round the base with duct tape so no sharp edges. Go over all parts of the box "that should open" with duct tape so it is fully sealed and more secure.
Once you have a head and base hole you can work out where the arm holes need to go, cut them out (make big enough to allow for clothing and more tape) and add duct tape over the edges. Tape the open side of the box together so you have a solid sealed box. You should have a box "outfit" your child can get into like the image right.We then measured the distance between the top of the smaller box and sons head so we could work out where the eyes needed to go, instead of cutting circles we cut a rectangle right across the front (so he could see even if he turned his head slightly), as with base hole don't cut all the way across leave some on each side for strength. Cut a smaller rectangle for the mouth. Go over the edges of both with duct tape.
Next we fixed the smaller box to the top (over the head hole), we fixed it on with the top flaps open, so it had the whole open part as space. We cut lengths of the tumble dryer pipe to use as arms (this was an old one heading for the bin).Our next move was to make the robot silver. We spray painted the tumble dryer pipes silver (as well as some of the patio and ourselves!) and left them to dry. We only did the outside. My son found some silver shiny wrapping paper with white stars all over it that he liked and wanted to use for the body. He wanted the head plain silver so we used tin foil. We covered the head first and secured it with more duct tape. Then we covered the body with the wrapping paper, i had to do it in bits due to the holes (and the bar code on box my son wanted to keep), I held the joins in place with normal selotape whilst i cut and sorted then secured with duct tape.
Once it was all covered i put duct tape around both ends of the tumble dryer pipe to cover the metal that had been snapped to break the tube, i then fixed them to the arm holes with more duct tape. Hopefully you have something that looks like our robot to the right.We still need to add buttons and bits to our robot but this is the main construction complete.
HOWEVER, my robot making and craft skills didn't end here as my son decided that he wanted the robot to have a pet kitten, cue more boxes, tape and stuff. The pieces were collected (see below) and made into shapes, spray painted and duct taped together. this didnt take as long as the main robot did.
I hope that you have as much fun as we did.
*NOTE* i am not linked to the duct tape brand, nor am i being asked to promote them. the tape i use is from £1 shop or other cheap shops as it's just for crafts. We use loads in the things we make so i cant justify using expensive brands for it. I have also bought different colours from shops (like aldi) when they have had on offer.
