Cars made of paper and cardboard to make time at home

From the world of engines, be it cars, trucks and racing cars, there are many ideas to invent games and other pastimes, perfect to make staying at home easier. The French magazine Auto Plus has collected a series of ideas and suggestions, all united by an element that cannot be renounced today: using objects and materials already available in drawers, closets or even recycling domestic waste.

This is the case of cardboard boxes - increasingly popular because they are linked to e-commerce deliveries - with which child-sized vehicles can be made, to be completed with external elements (aluminum foil is perfect for masks and headlights) or interiors, such as a small stool or an overturned bucket to create the seats.

The cardboard tube that remains when the roll of toilet paper or kitchen paper is finished is instead the ideal 'base' for a Formula One car or, if you have the materials, an entire stable. The wheels are cut from thicker cardboard and can be fixed in many ways, even leaving them free to turn. Markers and tempera are used to create the preferred livery.

To build a fun and 'compact' single-seater - which does not clutter too much in small houses - wooden clothespins, buttons and small cardboard cutouts can be used. Creative freedom is absolute and ailerons do not have to meet FIA standards.

A balloon (those that are held in the drawers to animate the parties), a straw and some Lego pieces, or even a toy vehicle already at home, are used instead to build the rocket racing car, or rather compressed air . As the images published by Auto Puls perfectly explain, just fix the balloon-straw assembly (ie the propulsion system) to the vehicle, and then 'load' by blowing the energy reserve.

There is also a variant of these cars with an 'integrated' push system. Using cardboard and a little more attention in cutting the various elements, you can create a self-supporting Formula One, with the body surrounding the 'engine', that is, the straw. To reproduce the wheels, with an adequate width, the caps of the milk or water bottles must be recovered.

The usual cardboard, not too rigid, and the usual tempera are the starting elements to build a real museum of the post-war car, starting - as French experts suggest - from the Beetle. Finally total relaxation (but the game is recommended for older children and also for the 'little ones' of old age) with origami.

Several online tutorials suggest the sequences of cutting and folding the sheets, to build cars, trucks and other motorsport subjects.