How often do you spend time outside with your kid? It is an open secret that many parents are quite busy, and this limits their association with the kids. However, this shouldn’t be the case.
There exists a myriad of things that you can do together with your kids to improve the bonding. One of them is making toy cars. Instead of purchasing the electric cars for kids, you can make one at home while using locally available materials and save a few bucks to spend on other stuff.
When making the toy cars with your kids, you also have time to rewind the years to the old days when you used to make them with your peers. In case you’ve forgotten how to make toy cars, the following are some of the steps to follow:
1. Assemble all the materials
You need to be well set before you begin making your toy car. This is through ensuring that you have all that you need in place. You don’t have to use costly materials, especially given that there are very many items that are commonly regarded as wastes that lie around. For the particular toy car that we are going to construct here, you require the following materials:
• Plastic bottle
• Knife
• Paint
• Caps
• Straws
• Brush
• String
All these materials can be locally sourced, and it is a perfect way of ensuring that they are put in good use instead of lying all over, ending up as environmental pollutants.
It is imperative to note that those are not the only materials that you can use to make toy cars. There are loads of others, and you can modify depending on what you have with you.
2. Clean the bottle
The bottle that you are going to use for making the car previously contained a substance such as a soft drink, and you need to clean it first before proceeding. The best way to clean is first to soak it in hot water then clean with a detergent.
Soaking in hot water ensures that any microorganisms that are in the bottle are destroyed. Also, soaking in water eases the process of removing the label on the plastic bottle.
3. Drill holes on the sides of the bottles
Once the bottle is clean and dry, it is now ready for use, and you can proceed by drilling holes on the sides. This can be done using objects such as a driller, a hot nail, or anything else that is capable of piercing. On this part, you need to be careful and ensure that the holes are aligned parallel to each other.
Remember that the holes are the points where the axles will be fixed. To ensure that the process is seamless even in the latter stages, you need to drill holes that are large enough to allow the free movement of the axle.
4. Fix your axles
Here, you can use any available materials such as straws, pencils, toothpicks, or anything else that can be easily sourced around. However, of all these materials, straws are the best pick as they are easily available, and they are also easy to use.
Therefore, you need to fix your straws and ensure that they can freely move. The straws should extend to the sides of the bottle. In this case, you just need two straws for the front and the rear wheels.
5. Gather your bottle caps
You need at least five bottle caps for this toy car. Four of them will be used as wheels while one will be used to cork the bottle at the front end. Ensure that the four bottle caps for use in making wheels are of equal size; otherwise, your toy car will be unstable and prone to toppling during riding.
6. Paint the bottle and the caps
The easiest way to ensure that you apply a uniform coat of paint to your car is to ensure that you paint each part separately before it is assembled. Once it is connected, you will realize that it is difficult to apply the paint on some parts. Painting ensures that the toy car has a uniform color, and this makes it appealing.
7. Drill a hole on the lid
As mentioned earlier, one of the bottle caps is to be used as the lid. You need to drill a small hole that allows the passage of a string to the bottle. The string is for pulling the toy car during riding. Once you drill the hole, pass the string through and make a knot on the inside. The knot should be big enough to ensure that that string doesn’t come out from the cork during riding. Alternatively, you can cut a small stick or straw and tie it to the inner side of the cork. It will serve the same purposes as the knot.
8. Make a windscreen
Remember that you want to mimic how a typical car appears. One of the ways of achieving this is through making a windscreen, and this can be easily done by cutting the upper side of the car. You need to cut three sides and lift the piece that is attached on one side to act as the windscreen. You should ensure that the windscreen faced the front end of the toy car. During painting, you can leave out the designed windscreen areas unpainted. This will enable you to have a clear part that mimics the actual car’s windscreen.
9. At this stage, all your materials are ready, and all that is left is to fix all parts together and come up with the toy car of your choice. You need to drill holes onto the four caps and attach them to the straw axles, and your toy car is ready for use. With the string tied from the front end, your toy car is ready for use. You can alternatively push the toy car from the back if you don’t want to pull using the string.
In a nutshell, making a toy car is as easy as the above steps illustrate. All that you need is first to assemble the materials and then follow the above procedure. The whole process will take you at least two hours, but with time, you can even do it within a shorter span. Therefore, go ahead and make a toy car for your kids. They will enjoy every bit of making it. With time, the kids will be able to make the cars on their own, and this kind of creativity is crucial for their development.
