When I was a kid, I sadly was not showered with everything my heart desired. One object of desire for me was the GI Joe USS Flagg (now considered the greatest playset ever), which my parents somehow didn’t think was necessary to have. I really felt that my GI Joes needed the force projection that was an aircraft carrier, so I gathered the cardboard inserts from my dad’s laundered shirts several months and built my own of cardboard and wood. I subsequently used cardboard to build everything that my GI Joes needed. Now that I have kids, I love to use cardboard to make cool stuff for them. So today I’ll take a break from software and talk about building something else.

At the beginning of the year, my son’s PK teachers came to our house for their welcome interview and saw one of several cardboard space ships that I had made that was being housed in my living room due to having been made too wide to pass though doorways. Due, I suspect, to that, a few months later on I got a letter from my son’s class of 4 year-olds asking if I could come in and build something with them.

The PK class had just completed a unit on Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying machines, and I love space, so after some brainstorming for a good project, I thought that building a replica of the Apollo Program Lunar Module would be a cool and fun project to do with the class.

The Plan

My project had a few goals:

• The Lunar Module had to be build-able by kids in a few hours without tools;
• The Lunar Module had to be something that a few kids could climb in;
• It had to be sturdy enough to survive kids;

So I went to wikipedia to look through their photos of the Lunar Module. Wikipedia is awesome. When I was a kid, I’d pore through the library looking for any random book of space-related stuff, the the pickings were mostly 1960s-are government books illustrating fanciful space habitats and abandoned projects. One of my most treasured possessions was a set of photocopies of Ralph McQuarrie’s drawings for Star Wars. It’s amazing what good resources we have these days.

So looking at the the LM wikipedia entry, I built a model so see how this would go together. I use shirt cardboard (which is why you should always have your shirts boxed). It turns out it’s a pretty complicated structure on top, with what appears to be a box and a cylinder. You can see a blue ball peeking out from the right – that’s a propellant tank.

One of the key requirements that I did not note above was that this had to use my favored building material: the 30″ x 30″ x 30″ heavy duty cardboard box. The kids marvel that it’s a box that arrives in another box! My wife marvels that it’s a $40 box. To their credit, these are basically indestructible.

The Design

I mulled over my model for a few days, then I made a design. Not included in the model was the decent engine, which was to be a core element of this project. I decided to use what I refer to generically as a SonoTube, but which is just a cylindrical concrete forming tube. I did a lot of theater tech in college, and if you wanted columns, these were the way to go. They have great strength, and so I went to Home Depot and picked up one made by Sakrete. I also bought a bunch of 12″x 60″ select pine boards.

Using graph paper, I did my design. This again was more a guide, and I used it to think about how I’d disassemble it, get it to school, and then have kids build it. I needed a mostly tool-free build.

The Build

The Core

I started off by building the platform that this would all sit on. So I started with the tube, and built a pair of frames shaped like tic-tac-toe boards.

I assembled these with lap joints where the main spars cross, and then finger joints on where the end pieces joined. I only had about a day to build these, so I stuck to joinery that could be easily done on a table saw. I didn’t have time to hand cut or switch dado blades in and out. Then, so I that the frames would hold together and the kids would have some real ‘building’ to do, I drilled holes for dowels to pin the corners together. I drilled smaller 3/16 holes first, then widened the holes partway so the pins only stuck at the ends.

I put cross-supports through the cut-down tube, and the frames just sit on the cross-pieces. The main module would sit on a platform created by this base. I ultimately screwed the frames to the supports that run through the core.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building the Legs

I feel that a typical lander of any sort is visually distinguished by its legs. So I set out to make somewhat articulated legs with that ‘Lunar Lander’ feeling. Plus, the legs would give the lander lots of lateral stability so that kids could play on it.

So I built four lower connectors that provided lower connection points for the legs, and these were screwed into the lower end-pieces of the frame.

Then, I made eight hinge pieces that would hold the upper connectors. You can see it coming together below. I had to work the upper connectors a bit, and eventually found that I had to rotate them 90 degrees to that the grain was aligned perpendicularly to the frame. The idea is that the majority of the force is downwards on the tube. The legs provide anti-tipping stability by pushing any sway in one direction into the hinges on that side.

I then went and built the four legs with their articulated pads so that the whole thing would sit on four nice big legs.

At this point, my patio wasn’t flat enough, so it was time to move my entire mess into the sun porch. Here, you see the four legs connected and pinned into place. Each leg can come off by popping out the dowels.

 

 

 

 

 

And the Cardboard!

Now, I was able to build the cardboard box that would finish the base. I cut the 30″ box in half, then fitted it over the frame. To do this I disconnected the upper connections of the legs, then trimmed the box so that the legs had holes to slot in to. Then I trimmed off the corners to get me the octagonal shape of the real lunar lander.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, it was time to build the crew module. I didn’t take pictures of this, since it’s not that exciting, but suffice to say that I cut up some cardboard into a smaller box and a cylinder, and joined them together with Gorilla Tape (the best and only tape for this).

Then, mostly using my model, I added some details to the front of the lander:

I didn’t take any pictures of the disassembly or re-assembly but the lander breaks down into:

• the four legs,
• four lower connectors,
• four upper frame ends,
• eight frame parts,
• the tube,
• the lower skirt (folds flat),
• and the crew module (which splits in half).

All told, you can fit almost everything into the rectangular half of the crew module.

The Assembly

At school I had two 2-hour blocks, each with half of my son’s class. the kids were able to do almost the entire assembly. The first day we built the lower frame with one group, then the second group added the legs and skirt the next day, and then they all finished the crew module.

The PK class still hasn’t named their vessel yet, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.