Recycled Robots

When I hear my children rustling through the recycling bin and demanding sticky tape and glue – I usually know they are up to something and that there is going to be a big mess at the end of it. Sometimes, they get ideas of things they want to make ‘right now’, ‘right this minute’ and not when ‘mummy has time to cover everything nicely with newspaper and set things out properly with glue pots and glue sticks…….’ I love making things with the kids but sometimes they catch me off guard when they have a great making idea!

This weekend was one of those days. They wanted to make robots. Cue them running round the house collecting up what they wanted to use and me running behind giving the ‘all clear’ to use certain items and hiding others. (I hastily had to put an end to my five year olds cunning plan of using the bathroom light pull – he had scissors at the ready to cut it off!) But once we’d ransacked the house for all our bits and bobs, we had a lot of fun playing around with different ways to make our robots.

As I hadn’t prepared anything for this craft, I thought it was a good one to share with you because it doesn’t need any preparation and you can make ‘Recycled Robots’ using whatever you have in the house.

Here are our recycled robots (they have been named Starlight and Jed because, you know, they are super cool robot names apparently!)

Here’s what we used to make our robots, but if there is something you don’t have – it can easily be replaced with something different. Have a scout about the house and you’ll be surprised at what gems you have for robot-making at your fingertips. You could try…… bottle tops for eyes, cotton buds for antennae or a yoghurt pot for a head!

Materials

Tin Foil
A variety of tin cans, paper cups or other bits and bobs from your recycling bin!
Nut and Bolt or screws
Pipe Cleaners
Spiral Stretchable plastic Keyring (or you could use pipe cleaners)
Mini plastic shot glasses (we found ours in Sainsburys)
Double sided sticky tape
Small Stickers (variety of shapes and colours)

Method

Cover your Tin Can and paper cup in tin foil.
Cut your spiral stretchable keyring in half and tape one end onto the inside of the tin can to make arms.
Tape together your tin can body and paper cup head using sticky tape.
Give your robot a face and quirky hair using pipe cleaners and nuts, bolt and screws or anything else you have in your craft supply!
Add little feet to your robot by sticking the upturned plastic shot glasses onto the bottom of the tin can using double sided sticky tape.
Using a small piece of card and stickers, make your robot a dashboard tummy. Use the stickers in different patterns to be the controls.
Stick the card onto the robot’s tummy using double sided sticky tape.
Name your cute robots and get playing! We ended up playing robot schools together where my 8 year old was the teacher for our robots! Lots of fun!

We’d love to see your creations – share them on Instagram with #dowtkcrafts or on Facebook!