How to Make a Lifesize Robot Out of Cardboard

Having your own cardboard and silver paint robot is a necessity for any die-hard vintage science fiction fan. For decades before the invention of computer, low-budget sci-fi made due with trash cans, cardboard boxes and other odds and ends to create killer robots and benevolent mechanical intelligences alike.

Things You'll Need

• Cardboard boxes
• Cardboard tubes
• Poster tubes
• Scissors
• Glue
• Tape
• Grabber arm
• Reflectors
• Various other supplies

Instructions

1. Get a square box for the head and a rectangular one for the body. Get two Poster tubes for the legs and long cardboard tubes for the arms. If you have toilet paper or paper towel tubes or extra pieces of cardboard lying around, gather that as well.

2. Make a face out of the cardboard scraps you have on hand. You can glue toilet paper tubes facing straight out of the head for eyes and a sideways paper towel roll for the mouth, for example. You can also fashion antennae taping strips of cardboard to the robot's head if he's a remote-controlled robot.

3. Attach the different parts together. Glue the head straight onto the body. For the arms and legs, you can either directly glue the parts together or cut circular holes in the body, insert the limbs and then glue them in place. The latter will make for a more secure attachment but involves a bit more work..

4. Apply a straight coat of metallic paint to the robot. The easiest way to do this is to take the robot outside, put down a drop cloth, and simply spray paint the whole thing with metallic paint until it is completely coated.

5. Paint the facial features. You can use a darker metallic paint for the mouth and red paint for the eyes to get an evil robot look.

6. Add any non-cardboard additions. You could glue toy grabber arms inside of the cardboard arms for robot hands or glue bicycle reflectors over the eyes.