Drawing robots

This was a neat project because me and the man with which I am affiliated got to build it together on the weekend when the party animal children we have created finally decided it was nap time.

I'm sorry to say that we split the tasks in a very stereotypical way, in that he got the soldering iron and I got the glue gun, but it was still a lot of giggles to do.

Here is some video footage of the robotic dance of art that took place on our kitchen floor...



We used some old containers and dollar store pens to make the structure and then added a weighted motor (one from an old Nintendo rumble pack we found at Savers for $3, and the others from dollar store handifans with glue weighting one of the propellors on each motor), powered with some AAA batteries in cases repurposed from various defunct electronics and switches superglued onto the top of the motors. The flashing lights came out of some old broken toys that my mate was getting rid of.

Here is the small tripod robot...

and here is the larger double motor, 5 pen robot...


The kids thought these little robots were really funny. The older ones (4 year olds) grasped that the motor was making it vibrate and that's what was causing the drawing, but the younger ones (2 year olds) really thought the little bots were alive and were talking to them and trying to coax them in one direction or another.
Very cute and we covered a load of butcher's block paper with their artwok. Enough to keep us in wrapping paper for a while.

I realised after we built it that the little robot had the pens glued on all wrong, because once they run out we'll have to trash it and build another, so with the bigger bot I glued the pen lids onto the container, rather than the pens themselves, so that way the kids can swap out the colours that it draws with. Cunning huh!

I'm trying to encourage the husband to start up his own blog featuring the electronics projects he does for the kids. Feel free to harrass him too via the comments section of this post ;)

Aluminium foil robots

We kind of made some robots a while back with aluminium foil and random empty boxes, yoghurt pots and containers, but it was pretty basic and I totally failed to photograph any of it.

But... today we finished off what was left of the random tea bags that were in the cupboard and I found myself with the same number of teabag boxes as children at the kitchen table, so more robots seemed like a quick and easy and entertaining plan.

I covered the boxes in the aluminium foil for them and then they set about putting stickers and sequins on for buttons. While they were doing this I drew and cut out some robot mouths and arms for them to stick on and they drew and coloured on them with sharpies too. Once they were done they picked out the colour pipe cleaner that they wanted and we taped it on the top as antenna.


The finished robots made me chuckle. They all look a bit malfunctional, but very enthusiastic.

As I was hurredly scribbling the arms and mouths and cutting them out I thought it might be a nice idea to make a page or so of robot bits and bobs that could be coloured in, cut out and stuck onby the kids, so in anticipation of more robot fun and in the hope that you too might print it out and make your own dizzy looking bots, here are a couple of pages of parts I scribbled out just now.

They are a bit rough due to the 10 minutes I spent drawing them, but I was careful to put a nice thick black line around the outside of them, so if any kids that are 4 or 5 want to cut them out themselves, they have easy lines to cut around. There's enough to make 3 robots on these two pages and you can even choose to make a ladybot and give them hearts too. There's one with two hearts because I heart Dr who.

Just click on the images opposite to see the full size pics and print to your heart's content.

I've included some sets of eyes, because there's always aluminium foil around, but not always plastic boggly eyes. There are three ownership labels too, because kids love having their names on stuff.

Paper plate angels

This idea comes from something I remember very fondly from my childhood. When I was little my mum got some printed cardboard angels that were quite tiny, probably only 2 inches tall at the most and the amazing thing to me was that they required no glue and were made from a single circle of card. Mum still has them I think, but they are probably quite battered after 20 odd years.

I thought it would be a cool idea to try and recreate their awesomeness using paper plates for the kids. We used full sized paper plates and ended up with quite large angels, but the same design works perfectly well with smaller plates for smaller angels and to be honest, you don't even really need a plate, just a circle of thin card. The paper plate just gives the wings realistic feather type texture and the bottom of the robes a pretty scallop. The dirt cheap thin paper plates work best.

I drew out and made the few cuts needed for each angel and then slotted the two half diameter slits into each other at the back and stuck a piece of sticky tape on to keep them secure while the kids coloured them and put stickers and glitter glue on. If you have older kids then it would be a better idea to get them to decorate the plates before you construct them, as it's easier to draw on them that way, but with my kids being so young I needed to construct them first for the kids to understand what was wing and what was robe.


NB if you colour them flat then remember that the side of the wings that you see when it's put together is actually the back of the plate.
They look very cute on top of Christmas trees or lined up on the mantle piece, and you can make them tall or short with long or short wings by adjusting how close together you make the two half diameter slits. Close together makes a tall angel with a skinny robe and long wings.

If you want to do non religious then a variation on the theme will give you a fairy, although the cutting is a little more involved.

At some point I'd like to draw out five or six different angels/fairies on a page of paper and scan them in, so you can print out a page, colour and make finger puppet sized ones. Maybe in the new year.

Cardboard Christmas trees

I'm sure I've mentioned this numerous times, but we regularly pilfer cardboard from Costco for our art and craft projects. It's like giving the cardboard an extra day to bask in the sun before sending it back to the recycling.

This year we cut out some Christmas trees and let the kids paint them green with watered down food colouring.
Then they dragged them outside and stuck a load of Christmas stickers from Oriental Trading all over them. Pretty simple, but it kept them entertained for a long time, for the price of a bag of stickers and we got good decoration acreage out of it too.

I've put the left over stickers in a box next to the trees in the living room and every now and again the kids go back to it and add a few more stickers when they feel like it.

Salt dough ornaments

Salt dough has been done to death every holiday season by kids for years and years, and there's a good reason for that. It's because it's fab!

I'd never made anything with salt dough before this year. The teacher at our local preschool gave me the recipe, which is so simple that I was astounded. It's just one part salt, four parts all purpose flour and one and a half parts hot water. Knead for 10 minutes and you're good to go. make models or roll it out and cut ornaments like we did, then bake at about 200 degrees until it's all nice and dried out and hard. Easy peasy.

Yes, I need a cup of tea within two feet of me to accomplish anything.

Thank you to Sara for letting us borrow all her many Christmas cookie cutters! Nifty tip from preschool teacher: Use a drinking straw to cut out the holes for hanging the ornaments with! I poked patterns into them with both ends of a wooden BBQ skewer and we used a few rubber stamps on them too that worked quite nicely. Some have lovely Aztec like patterns from three woodcut blocks that our freinds the D'ambra's gave us when we visited them last.

We had loads of fun with this. Lots of kids made lots of different versions on different days and I even made some on my own late at night to give as presents. Here for your amusement are a lot of photos of the fun we had.

We tried painting them, adding glitter and then we tried colouring some others in with marker pens. The kids enjoed this activity so much that I think we'll be doing salt dough valentine hearts and easter eggs in the new year too!

We have a tiny little potted Christmas tree this year and I'm tempted to keep it in the house for the rest of the year and let the kids dress it up as a valentines/easter/4th july/halloween/thanksgiving tree as the year progresses.

Here are some pics of the teeny christmas tree decorations I made after the kids had gone to bed. I went slightly overboard with the amount of dough I made and still have some in the fridge.These teeny ones are only about an inch tall and were cut out using a set of I think it was 20 xmas themed plastic cookie cutters that came from Michael's and cost an astoundingly bargainerific $1.99 for the lot! I couldn't figure out a way to make the gingerbread men not either be dangling from their feet or look as though they have been shot through the head. Hey ho.