Make this cool robot out of styrofoam! Kids will really enjoy putting their own touch on this neat robot craft. This project better suited for slightly older children if done from start to finish. A toddler could do this, if the bulk of the styrofoam painting was finished well before hand and dry (like 5 of the 6 sides of the cube were painted so they only had to do one).

What you'll need:

  • A large square Styrofoam block
  • A smaller square Styrofoam block
  • Silver pipe cleaners
  • Silver, green, red, and purple paint
  • Foam paint brush
  • Wood circles, hearts, misc. shapes
  • Popsicle stick
  • 2 googly eyes
  • Marker
  • Painters tape or masking tape
  • Glue
  • Wax paper
How to make this robot craft:
  1. Paint both Styrofoam squares silver. We sat ours on wax paper to dry and as one side would dry we would flip it over so the wetter sides could dry. This works better than newspaper because as the piece dries the wax paper won't stick to the paint. Let pieces dry.
  2. Paint the wooden knobs and shapes. The easiest (and cleanest) way to paint these small wooden shapes is to stick them onto painters tape or masking tape before you start painting (see the image that shows this). This works especially well with toddlers and makes it much less frustrating. Let the pieces dry.
  3. Take 4 pipe cleaners and wind each one around the marker. Slide the curled pipe cleaner off. (see the image that shows this). These four pieces will be the arms and legs of your robot. Use two other pipe cleaners and bend them into a hand shape. Twist the hands onto two of the curled pipe cleaners.
  4. Once the Styrofoam pieces are dry, glue the wooden pieces onto the front of the robot to make buttons.
  5. On the smaller square piece, glue the two googly eyes and the wooden pieces you want to be the mouth (we used round knobs).
  6. Once the glue on these pieces dry, insert the popsicle stick into the large body piece of the robot, then slide the head piece onto the other end to attach the two pieces together.
  7. Insert an arm onto each side of the larger block. Then insert the two legs so they are coming out of the front of the robot (like he's sitting down).
styrofoam robot craft
robot craft materials
robot arms pipecleaners
robot buttons