Submarine

Set out to different ports of imagination with this craft. Visit the ATV garage and learn how to create a submarine out of cardboard boxes.

Large moving box
Cardboard bin
Packing tape
Curved PVC pipe
X-acto knife
2 wooden skewers
Silver wrapping paper
Silver tape
Black marker
Gold poster board
Plate
Blue cellophane
Scissors
Cutting mat

REMEMBER THAT IT'S IMPORTANT TO ALWAYS WORK UNDER ADULT SUPERVISION. SOMETIMES WE USE THINGS THAT CAN BE HARMFUL, LIKE SCISSORS, SO DON'T EVER ATTEMPT TO MAKE THESE CRAFT PROJECTS ALONE.

1. Find a large moving box to be the main body of your submarine. Flatten it out and designate what you want to be the top, bottom, front, back, and left and right sides of your sub. With your plate and your marker, trace three circles each onto the left and right sides of your moving box/sub.
2. Use an X-acto knife to cut out the circles and make portholes for the sub. Slide a cutting mat into the box underneath where you’re cutting to avoid cutting all the way through the box on either side. Be sure to save the circles you cut out too. You’ll need those later.
3. Next, find a cardboard bin. This will eventually go on the top of your main submarine body as a canopy compartment. In the meantime, trace the opening of the bin onto the top of the body. Cut it out and this will be where you stick your head into the canopy from within the sub.
4. Take the circles you cut from the moving box and cut eight 90 degree triangles out of them. These triangles will act as braces for the corners of your box in order to hold it upright.
5. Put your moving box together. Instead of sealing the flaps on the ends together, just attach the edges of them to each other using tape. This will give your sub a longer body.
6. Take your triangles and insert one into each corner made by the flaps. Fit the angles together and seal them with tape. This will make the sub nice and sturdy.
7. With the body of your sub assembled, wrap it in your metallic silver wrapping paper. Use tape to make sure it stays on the sub.
8. Find where your portholes are underneath the wrapping paper and cut it away where you need to so that you can still see through them. To properly cut the paper, make slits with the X-acto knife where you want to begin in the hole, and finish cutting the shape with scissors. Do the same for the canopy hole on top of the sub.
9. Decorate the outside of each porthole with a marker to make them look like they have rims with rivets.
10. Now you can start working on the canopy itself. Use your plate to trace another hole on one of the sides of your canopy for another porthole. Cut it out.
11. Cut out squares of blue cellophane big enough to fit over your portholes from the inside of your sub. To do that, place the plate down on the cellophane and cut the square out around it. Do this for each of your portholes and tape a square over each porthole on the inside. Now when you’re in the sub, it will look like you’re underwater!
12. Time to make the propeller for the sub. Take a piece of gold poster board and use the length of your cutting mat to trace a square onto it. Cut the square out.
13. Draw a line extending from each corner to the center of the square.
14. Cut through each line with scissors to make the blades but be careful not to cut all the way to the center on any of them. Otherwise, you’ll be left with four separate triangles.
15. Using one of your wooden skewers, poke a hole into every other corner of the propeller (the bottom left corner of each “blade”) about half an inch from the edge.
16. Carefully poke a hole into the center of the propeller. Then, tape both of your skewers together end-to-end to create the propeller’s shaft. Use silver tape to give it a metallic look. Once your have them taped together, wrap the rest of the shaft in the tape, leaving the shaft a little bare at one of the ends so you can insert that end into the propeller.
17. With the shaft complete, insert the bare end through the center of the propeller. Then, take the corner of each blade with a hole in it and bring them up over the center, threading the skewer through each hole. Tape off the center. The end result should look like a pinwheel.
18. Round off the tip of each propeller blade with scissors.
19. Take your PVC pipe and tape it down in the center of the top of your canopy as a periscope. Use as much tape as you need.
20. Finally, stick your propeller to the back of the sub, climb into the sub through the canopy hole, and place canopy over the hole and your head. Now you’re ready to explore the deep!