Moon Buggy
- One egg box (for 12 eggs)
- Two cardboard tubes (kitchen roll tubes are ideal), one just small enough to fit inside the other.
- Corrugated cardboard (enough to cut out 24 circles to make the wheels.
- Small soap box from a tablet of soap
- Thin card (for step ladder etc.)
- Two plastic domes (coffee cup covers or packing from fruit boxes)
- Thick tinfoil (from yoghurt pots)
- Elmer´s School Glue (or similar) and Gluebrush.
- Hot glue gun.
- Masking tape, scissors, black felt tip pen and glasspaper.
- Florist´s stem wire and wire cutters
- Acrylic or poster paints and brushes.
- Additional decorative items as required.
The Moon Buggy is built upon an eggbox frame and has wheels that really turn. Small boxes were fastened to the top and the plastic domes for the astronauts were originally coffee cup covers from the cafe! Ladders were cut out of thin card and wheel covers made from yoghurt pot tops, bottle tops and ping-pong balls. Tyre treads can be made by gluing a strip of single sided corrugated cardboard around the wheel. The whole buggy was painted then details such as a crew entrance, paper flags and antennae were attached! It was loads of fun building this!
How to Make Wheels That Work.
- Cut six discs from corrugated cardboard and lightly sandpaper the disc surfaces to improve sticking.
- Glue one side of each disc and place neatly one on top of another as shown. Press until dry to make a wheel. When dry glue a circle of white paper on the front and on the back of the wheel to hide any printing and prepare it for painting.
- Cut two equal length tubes from the fatter tube, and tape both to the egg box as shown in step 3. Remember to leave enough overhang at the ends, so that the wheels, when fitted, will clear the sides of the egg box. Space the tubes far enough apart so that the wheels will not touch each other.
- The thinner tubes have tabs cut into each end as shown. The distance between the tabs should be slightly longer than the length of the previously fixed tubes, so that the wheels will turn freely.
- The tabs at one end of a thinner tube, are flattened out and hot-glued to the exact centre of a wheel as shown.
- Once the tube is firmly fixed to the wheel...
- Thread the thinner tube through the fatter tube and open out the tabs at the end.
- Carefully hot glue the tabs, and press firmly onto the second wheel at the exact centre. Repeat these steps to make the second pair of wheels.
Step 4
Step 3
Step 2
Step 1
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Step 5