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Cardboard boxes can build just about anything!
Birthdays are a big deal at our house. I love to celebrate and create a special day for my kids. One year my son picked a military birthday theme and wanted a working tank! Well, after much consideration, I searched the internet trying to see if someone has created this before. I found a few ideas but nothing like what I wanted exactly. So,here is how I built a tank!
Step one: Save your cardboard boxes! This can take months or weeks depending on how much you order online.
Step Two: Tape, Tape, Tape. I used all sorts of tape to get my tank constructed. The duct tape really held the best but when you run out masking tape did a fine job as well. Here below you have my base structure for the tank. Starting with a huge square box, I taped a smaller box on top and then just taped cut boxes to look like wheels and the top of the tank.
Step Three: I covered the entire structure with paper bags, and brown paper. I had some packing paper and in some areas I used paper grocery bags. I wanted a smooth brown surface so that I could spray paint some camouflage on the tank. I cut out the back of the box on top so that it was easy for my kids to control the canon. The canon and two side launchers are made from oatmeal containers that I covered in brown paper as well. As you will see the brown paper covering really helped the look become real.
Step Four: Paint. A few cans of camo spray paint will transform your paper tank into a wonderful copy of a real tank. This step was the easiest and really got the kids excited!
Step Five: It’s all in the details. I added black paper on the bottom of both sides to act as the treads. You can see we moved it around some and a little fell off but most of all it stayed fine. I added a star on each side that the kids got to color and a US Army sign on the back.
Overall, my kids were thrilled and so was I. Using cardboard was cheap and frugal. Only cost was some paint and a few rolls of duct tape and my time of course. Since we used the oatmeal container it was wide enough to accommodate a foam rocket launcher. Yes the cannon actually shot a rocket! The kids would get in the tank, put the foam rocket launcher into the oatmeal container and shoot. Have you made anything from used cardboard? What do you think of my tank?