Awesome Cardboard

V. Idea is an expert at building mechanical things out of cardboard, popsicle sticks, and hot glue. Watch them put together a fully-functional model of a 6-speed manual transmission with a working gear shifter. There’s no clutch pedal though.

Lamar + Nik created this clever music video for Taylor Bennett f/Mr. Hudson’s soulful hip hop track Don’t Wait Up. Rather than shooting on location, they placed the musician into scenes using the screen from an iPhone. They made the sets from cardboard, hot glue, and assorted miniatures. Behind the scenes here.

So you want a Ferrari, but you only have $100 to spend. Financial limitations didn’t stop these young men from Vietnam from getting what they wanted. Using cardboard, fiberglass, a metal frame, and a whole lot of effort, they built a rough approximation of an Ferrari FXX-K… and it actually can drive. They also made a Lamborghini.

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.

This tiny billboard lets you live out your graffiti fantasies right on your desktop. The kit is made from recycled chipboard and can be assembled in just a few minutes. Buy a bunch and create a whole bookshelf full of your own original street art. Grab ’em while you can. Sadly, its maker Boundless Brooklyn is closing up shop.

Raphael of Epic Cardboard Props has built some pretty amazing things out of cardboard boxes and hot glue. This time, he went all out, and created a huge sculpture of a T.Rex head, inspired by the killer dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Want your own paper dino? Buy the template and follow along with the video tutorial.

Using an ordinary computer keyboard as a starting point, maker SKM managed to create a fully-functional keyboard that’s made out of cardboard and popsicle sticks. We’re not sure how long it will last, but it’s definitely more functional than his cardboard mechanical typewriter.

Most cheap globes are made by forming cardboard or plastic around a mold. Maker SKM shows how he built his own cardboard globe from scratch by building a spherical skeleton, then wrapping the structure in triangular slices of paper. More impressive is the 3-axis rotating stand, built primarily from popsicle sticks formed into rings.

(Gore) The guys from Cardboard Movie Co. love to do low-budget remakes of popular movies. We’re particularly impressed with their redo of Ridley Scott’s science fiction horror classic, Alien, which somehow manages to balance on the thin line between quality filmmaking and ridiculously low budget effects.

Raphaël makes incredibly detailed papercraft models for his YouTube channel Epic Cardboard Props. In this clip he walks us through the process of building a miniature of Han and Chewie’s ship. He’s also made a cardboard Death Star and an X-Wing Fighter, among other things. He sells DIY templates for his models here.

You’d think that cardboard wouldn’t be a great homebuilding material, but Fiction Factory says their tiny cardboard house is durable enough for permanent structures. The tiny house is assembled using layers of premium “goldboard” which is wrapped around a special mold, then covered with glue, a protective film, and wooden slats.

With the goal of providing an inexpensive way to help people work from home, Denmark-based designers Stykka created a home office desk that you assemble from cardboard and zip ties. You can purchase it as a kit in regular or standing heights, or download a template to make your own from sheets of cardboard.

Cloud’s Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII is one of the coolest weapons in gaming history. While a real world version would be too heavy to effectively wield, one made from cardboard is totally manageable. Watch as Crafty Transformer turns a bunch of corrugated paper into a lightweight replica of the iconic combat tool.

Sean Yan Muk of SeansCrafts loves to make stuff out of ordinary household materials. This time out, he created a pair of impressively accurate Nike Air Force 1 sneakers out of cardboard, then wore the pair into footwear stores to check out the reactions when he asked if they had them in stock.

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.

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.

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.

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.