THE BEST Cardboard

The Q takes a gamble with this build – a fully-functional slot machine built from cardboard, popsicle sticks, and hot glue. We love the detail he included on the reels to make it look like the real deal. Stick around for a few other fun DIY builds in this compilation video.

We have fond childhood memories of playing one of those tabletop hockey games and trying to smash the puck into our friend’s goal. Maker Sean Yan Muk of SeansCrafts decided to build himself a version of the classic game using cardboard, curtain rods, popsicle sticks, springs, and toy soldiers.

Sean’s Crafts loves to build things out of cardboard, rubber bands, and other low-budget household items. Here, he shows off a homebrew weapon he built that can hold and fire up to six NERF foam darts. Its revolver doesn’t automatically turn, but it’s still pretty nifty.

Cardboard builder The S shows off one of his more entertaining creations, a motor-driven cardboard weapon that fires Mentos. Its magazine holds up to 1000 of the chewy mint candies, enough to eradicate even the worst dragon breath from a distance.

You can pick up a cheap paper shredder for about 20 bucks, but what fun is that when you can build your own? The Q shows off a homebrew shredder that does the trick using sharpened metal discs. It’s missing the safety mechanisms that production shredders offer, so DIY at your own risk.

Kousheek Chakraborty and Satya Schiavina of Technovation show off a nifty design for a longboard with an quarter iso-grid cardboard center sandwiched between two layers of acrylic. While it looks reasonably stable for slow cruising, we’re not sure you’d want to do tricks on it. Check out the full build log on Instructables.

Off-road vehicles are designed to be capable of handling extremely rugged terrain. But builder Liberman’s remote-controlled cardboard and popsicle stick model of a Jeep Wrangler is anything but durable. Sure, it looks really cool, but riding through wet and muddy ruts means it’s gonna need frequent tire changes.

Maker The Q built this awesome larger-than-life, fully-articulated LEGO minifig costume using cardboard and hot glue. With more than three weeks left until Halloween, you should have plenty of time to try and replicate the design yourself. Are you up to the challenge?

Crafty Transformer takes the cardboard boxes he receives Amazon orders in and converts them into awesome weapons and machines inspired by video games. Among our favorites are the Gundam wrench mace, the Yu-Gi-Oh! duel disk, and the Monster Hunter bowgun.

The Q has built some pretty nifty mechanical contraptions from cardboard, and here’s another. Watch as he turns a mix of cardbaord, paper, rubber bands, springs, and popsicle sticks into a working model of a 7-segment numeric display, like you might find on alarm clock.

Sure, you can go out and buy an off-the-shelf replica of Iron Man’s infinity gauntlet from Avengers: Endgame, but there’s something so satisfying about building your own. Seanscrafts shows us his DIY gauntlet he made using cardboard, a glove, hot glue, and paints.

Have you ever gotten a box from Amazon that’s way too big for the item packed inside? The CMC Cartonwrap 1000 solves this problem by scanning the item to be packed inside, then making a custom-sized box for it. It’s not ideal for fragile items, though it looks like they’re working on that.

Like many other makers, SKM loves to build things from cardboard. This time, he used what appears to be an off-the-shelf template to create a model of Iron Man’s iconic helmet, though this one is guaranteed to offer absolutely no level of protection to its wearer.

The Q show off another one of their awesome low-budget builds, a robot arm that’s made primarily from cardboard and popsicle sticks, and controlled by plastic syringes filled with colored liquid. If there’s anyone we’d want to be stranded on a desert island with, it’s these guys.

It might look like a stool, but this is actually a book. Designed by Mike Mak, Bookniture’s cardboard honeycomb structure can hold over a ton, and folds up into a book for storage when not in use. Measures 13.5″h x 14″ dia when in use, 13″h x 7″w x 1.5″d when folded.

While SKM’s cardboard typewriter doesn’t actually work, it’s still an impressive build, with lots of neat details, a cantilevered keyboard, a turning roller, and a hidden compartment that lets it output a pre-typed page for fun.

Serial maker The Q used over 530 square feet of cardboard and more than 100 hot glue sticks to build this 1/3rd scale model of a Formula 1 race car. After he finished building the structure, he went on to give the car a proper racing livery.

While you can certainly just go buy a Hot Wheels set, Mini Gear thinks its more fun to build your own track from scratch. He proves yet again that with cardboard, popsicle sticks, hot glue, and rubber bands, you can make just about anything with enough time and effort.

Do-it-all craftstman The Q shows us how he made a huge machine gun using mainly cardboard, wood, and lots of glue. It has an electronic mechanism that lets it fire long paper bullets, as well as a swappable cartridge.

While we’re not convinced that Davie504’s handmade cardboard bass guitar will hold up to extended playing, we’re still impressed that it sounds as good as it does. It’s good to know there’s another use for all of those Amazon boxes we get every week.

Kiwami Japan is back with another ridiculously improbable knife construction – an impressively-sharp kitchen blade made from pressed cardboard. We weren’t quite sure what he was up to for the first few minutes and thought we were watching HowtoBasic.

Boston Pizza is changing the pizza delivery game with its invention. It came up with a pizza box that lays flat and has two legs that pop out and lock in place, so you can head straight to bed with your pizza. They recently offered a limited run, but hopefully they will make more.

It might not be strong enough to stop an actual bear, but this pointy-toothed trap made from cardboard, a ruler, skewers, and rubber bands can definitely bust some balloons. Mr. Hot Glue’s Family walks us through the build of his silly contraption with an equally silly video clip.

To prove just how versatile cardboard can be, Houston-based Victory Packaging turned up to a tradeshow with a 16-foot-tall gear-driven sculpture reminiscent of the space travel portals from Stargate. This isn’t the only time they built something awesome with cardboard.