Cardboard box robots

I cut a tail fin, then some wings, and then a swept back nose cone. I grabbed the Sharpies and drew on some buttons, a throttle, and a radar. To finish it off I threw a blanket and pillow in it for comfort. This was my first time trying to make something other than a differently shaped box out of a box so, after a quick ride in it, my son quickly broke his rocket ship. Who knew a toddler was stronger than packing tape?

Not to be deterred, I went looking for something stronger to hold the ship together. For Christmas, we got our son a pretty cool workbench which, among other things, includes several plastic nuts and bolts. I cut some holes with my box cutter and pushed the bolts through and suddenly we had a fairly stable and sturdy rocket ship. I also added his name, some alien “counters, ” and, by request, a blue giraffe to the rocket ship.

To polish off the rocket ship, I took 2 plastic nails from his workbench and used them to hold the control panel in place, drew some switches on the control panel, and used some left over paint to paint the tail, wings, and nose cone. I’m pretty happy with the final results, and my son loves it!

Most of the supplies we had around the house.

• 3 differently sized cardboard boxes for the head and body and feet
• Construction paper to cut out bits and bobs
• 2 canning jar lids for eyes
• a leftover can of metallic spray paint
• a leftover metal-braided water house
• 2 differently sized leftover metal hoses for arms and legs
• Glue stick and tape

The only two items we had to purchase for building this were the tissue paper, for punching through, and the lunch bags, for holding the goodies in place. Not to overstate the obvious, but we did also purchase the goodies to go IN the bags.

After spray painting my three boxes, I started on the feet and legs. I didn’t want to make the feet independent as I wanted this as sturdy as possible. I drew a line to show a division between the two feet and then cut two very short legs from the wider 6-inch vent hose. I cut tabs in both ends of the hose to attach it to the feet and the body.

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