MAKE: Your Own Robot!

Make your own ROBOT!

(With Vince and his Mummy)

  

We have had more than our fair share of rainy Sundays stuck in the house lately... Rather than getting depressed about the weather and mourning the things we couldn't go outside to do, Vince and I decided to make a joint artistic effort to build something really cool... Vince is a huge fan of Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom (a kids' TV show) and one of his favourite episodes involves a robot who does whatever Ben Elf asks him to do. Vince quite fancied having his own "pet robot", and I spotted a friend's Facebook photo album showing a robot made from a cardboard box (Hi Nic, Chris & Adam! Thanks for the inspiration!) and so the idea grew...

 

We decided that this might get a bit messy, so we prepared ourselves properly by setting out lots of newspaper to cover the kitchen table.

Next, we gathered some of the coolest shapes we could find in the recycling bag. We weren't sure which ones we would use but we had a decent selection, including a nice big cereal box which I figured would work beautifully for the main body of our robot. We also had some cardboard toilet rolls and some foil trays, which seemed quite robot-y to Vince and me!

 

We raided Vincent's arts & crafts box, finding vital googly eyes and lots of stickers. I also grabbed the tin foil from the kitchen, which I was sure would come in handy somehow. We even rediscovered some self-adhesive glow-in-the-dark stars that had been waiting for a worthy project for ages!

 

Our glue of choice is the marvellous and very kid-friendly Mod Podge. It is a non-toxic, water-based sealer, glue and finish which dries clear and doesn't go all tacky. We love it for most of our toddler craft projects!

 

I did a bit of thinking and planning and decided that our robot would look pretty cool if we used the big box for his main body and used the toilet rolls for arms, legs and a neck, and smaller boxes for his feet and head. To attach them, we cut some clever crosses in the boxes which we then plastered in Mod Podge and slotted the cardboard tubes into the holes. (Make sure the holes are only JUST big enough, so that the tubes fit nice and snug!)

 Standing him up on his little legs got us all excited, he was starting to take shape!

More clever criss-crosses for the arm and neck holes, and more Mod Podge splatted about, and we gave him some arms and a Ritz-cracker-box head :)

Vince found two plastic milk bottle lids that we could use for his eyes, and I had another clever Mummy idea for his face: We cut the top off a mini Corn Flakes box for a sticking-out mouth, and cut a slit in the front of it so that we could "feed" our robot little cardboard coins. The hole in the Corn Flakes box would allow us to reach in the side and retrieve the coins when our robot was "full"! With all of the construction and heavy gluing finished, we left our robot to dry (or "have a robot nap" as I told Vince) while we had our lunch.

With renewed energy for our project and a belly full of tuna sandwiches, Vince chose some gorgeous bright colours, and we set to work painting our friend plus some cardboard coins ("robot food"!) that I had cut from another cereal box. Our metallic gold and silver paints really seemed to set it all off nicely.

It was very important to Vince that he be the one to stick the googly eyes in their rightful place, and our friend seemed to take on a cheeky sort of character! Mummy scrunched some of the tin foil (I knew it would be useful for something!) into some little pinchy finger shapes and we stuffed them into the toilet tube arms to give the robot a pair of grabber hands.

With lots of random decorations and a little glitter glue dotted around, we felt sure that our friend was perfect and left him to dry fully before his first "meal" and playtime!

 

Vince fed his robot all of the coins, and with the last coin, he was certain that his friend would come to life and speak to him.... What do you think? ;)

Want to have a go?? Some tips and tricks...

• You can use any combination of boxes that you happen to have lying around. Be imaginative! Robots come in all shapes and sizes :)
  
  
• If your little person is of the impatient variety, or if you'd like to try this project with a younger toddler (Vince is nearly 3), why not prepare the robot yourself in advance and let your children decorate him with stickers. The mess levels can also be well contained this way ;)
  
  
• The coins and the mouth slot on our robot seem to me to be a vital part of the reason that Vince will go back to play with him again and again. You could use your imagination and "feed" your robot anything you like: Why not cut some food shapes out of cardboard, or maybe some chunky cardboard nuts and bolts?
  
  
• Feeding your robot could take the place of a reward chart: Successful uses of the potty or good manners at the dinner table could be rewarded by your little monkey feeding something to their new friend!
   
• Use Mod Podge: It's awesome. (No, they haven't sponsored me to say that.... I wonder whether I should ask them to pay me, though...)
  

 We'd love to hear from you or see photos of your robot friends... Please feel free to email us at info@oliveandvince.co.uk to let us know what you've been up to!