Here’s a cute little paper cup robot craft for kids to make and play with! A fun craft that shows children how to upcycle ordinary household items!

Do you remember the Jetsons cartoon? Well, I may have just aged myself with that question! Well, it was one of my favorites, and an interesting character everyone loved from the show was Rosie – the Jetsons’ robotic domestic helper!

Rosie was amazing; she could do multiple things in a jiffy, and was always ready to help. So why are we suddenly talking about robot maids today? Because we’re bang in the middle of National Robotics Week!

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What is National Robotics Week?

National Robotics Week started in 2013, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to dedicate an entire week in April to focus on the future of robotics technology. This year, the dates fall between 5th and 12th April.

The resolution aims to help students and children explore robotics and other STEM subjects, and to inspire them to take it up as a career. Robots are an integral part of our lives today, from robot vacuums to robotic surgery, so it’s only right that they get the attention they deserve!

How to Celebrate National Robotics Week

If you can, there’s nothing like designing, coding and building your own robot!
If you’re new to robotics, learn about robots through books and videos
Check out virtual tours of the iRobot Cool Stuff Museum, seen through the lens of a mobile robot
Join an online event for coding, playing games or simply celebrating the week
Make robot crafts with anything you have lying around at home

If you’re looking for robot crafts, you’ve come to the right place, because we’ve got a super cool recycled paper cup robot craft ready for you today!

Playful Paper Cup Robot Craft for Kids

Supplies required:

Paper cup
Colored craft paper
Card stock
Googly eyes
Sharpies
Pencil
Scissors
Craft glue

How to Make the Paper Cup Robot Craft for Kids:

1. Download and print the paper cup robot craft template. The template includes everything we need to build our robot, like the body, head, control panel, arms, hands and antenna.

2. Trace the parts of the template on craft paper of the appropriate colors and cut them out. You can use pretty much any color you like – there are no rules! A grey would probably be the most common choice to represent a metal like steel or aluminum. You can also choose brown as the base color and go with brighter colors like red, orange or yellow for the smaller parts. For the head, we recommend choosing a thicker paper or cardstock of the same color as the base.

3. Let’s start with the control panel of our robot. Stick the large rectangle inside the large square. Stick the smaller rectangles adjacent to it, as shown in the image below – these are the robot’s buttons! Stick the small circle at the tip of the antenna.

4. Let’s get to the main part of our paper cup robot craft – the paper cup body! A standard-size paper cup works well – make sure the base cutout from the template is large enough to fit around the cup.

5. Apply glue on the cup’s curved surface. Start sticking one end of the base cutout on the glue, and continue moving around the cup till the paper is completely wrapped around it. You can leave the rim of the cup free.

6. Place the cup so that the smooth part is in front. Stick the control panel in the middle of this area.

7. Take the cardstock head cutout and roll it into a cylindrical shape. Apply glue to the open ends to secure the cylinder.

8. use glue to attach the paper antenna to the curved side of the cylinder at any point in the middle.

9. Stick two googly eyes on the cylinder’s curved surface right below the antenna. Attach a small rectangular cutout below the eyes, which will represent the mouth of the paper cup robot craft. Your robot’s head is complete!

10. Let’s move on to the robot’s limbs, for which we need the thin strips from the template. Take two strips and join them at a 90-degree angle as shown below. Use glue to secure the strips in place. You now have an ‘L’ shape, with a vertical strip and a horizontal strip that extends to the right.

11. Keeping the vertical strip in place, hold the horizontal strip and fold it to the opposite side so that it now extends to the left.

12. Now, keeping the horizontal strip in place, fold the vertical strip to the opposite side so it extends down.

13. Now, keep the vertical strip in place and fold the horizontal strip to the right.

14. Continue folding each strip alternately to the opposite direction till you reach their ends.

15. Once you’ve reached the end of both strips, close them by applying glue. You will notice that it looks a lot like a paper spring. You’ve now made one arm of the paper cup robot craft!

16. Repeat steps 10-15 with the other two strips in the template to make the other arm. Now, take the hand cutouts and make thin folds at the wrist edge.

17. Use glue to stick the folds on the hands to the open sides of the paper spring arms, as shown below.

18. Attach the paper arms to both sides of the paper cup base with glue.

19. Make a smaller paper spring for the robot’s neck and stick it on the cup’s bottom, where the head will go.

20. For the grand finale, attach the robot head on the top end of the neck paper spring and that’s it – your paper cup robot craft is ready!

Now try making more robots using other color combinations and different cup sizes!

How cute is this paper cup robot craft? We love the fact that you can move his arms and neck so that it feels like he’s real. Ask the kids what they would like him to do if he were a real robot. Would they want him to clean their room? Or do their chores? You may end up with some interesting answers!

For more STEM-related projects for kids, check these out: