Animate a Roaring Tiny Rex Puppet

A tiny, yet mighty cardboard dinosaur with a lot to say! Puppetry is a current fascination of ours, and we wanted to use mechanical linkages with sturdy material of cardboard to do so.

Disassemble a cardboard box into sheets. Use the template to trace the shapes of the tiny rex's body parts. When attaching the parts together with moving joints. The result leads to controlling the tail to push the mechanical linkage through the body, animating the jaw to make the tiny rex roar!

• 1-leg connectors x 10
• Orange straw (8 cm) x 1
• Corrugated cardboard boxes to be cut down into sheets
• Scissors
• Pencil for tracing
• Alternative: Brass brads x 4

If you don't have Strawbees connectors and straws, replace the 1-leg connectors with brass brads and the straw with a cardboard linkage found on the template. You will need 4.

Print the tiny rex template for tracing the tail, body, feet, and jaw on cardboard sheets. The pieces are small enough to trace on the flaps of small Amazon packages.

To get Strawbees connectors and precut straws, you can purchase the STEAM School Kit (for up to 30 students) or STEAM Starter Kit (1 per student).

Vocabulary

• Pivot point (noun) – A point around which a mechanism rotates, revolves, or turns.
• Linkage (noun) – A mechanical linkage is an assembly of bodies called links connected with joints to manage forces and movement.
• Link (noun) – A rigid body in a linkage.
• Joint (noun) – A connection between two or more links in a linkage.

• Tiny Rex Template
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Cardboard

Print the tiny rex template and cut each piece from the sheet. In total there will be 4 pieces: a jaw, body, tail, and feet. Cut sheets from a cardboard box.

This Instructable is assembling the puppet with the tiny rex's head pointing to the right. What this means is this is the side you will see as the final result. Remove stickers, tape, and choose the side with minimal branding and tears for your puppet.

Trace all body parts on cardboard sheets. Before removing the paper, hold in place then poke holes with a pencil and use the scissors for the flat slots. Discard the templates.

Cut out each cardboard body part.

• 1-leg connector x 1

Bend the end of a 1-leg connector and poke through the flat slot of jaw.

• 1-leg connector x 1

Click another 1-leg connector on the leg sticking up to secure. This 1-leg connector will connect to the mechanical linkage in a later step.

• 1-leg connector x 2

Take 2 of the 1-leg connectors and fit the leg of one into the other connector all the way to lock in place.

• 1-leg connector x 1

Fit the jaw on the body pointing to the right. Flip the tiny rex's body to the reverse side then lock with a 1-leg connector. This joint is for keeping the jaw secure to the body with free-range of motion because of the round hole.

• 1-leg connector x 1

Collect the tail. Place down with the pointy end facing to the left. Bend a 1-leg connector. On the other side fit the connector into slot of tail.

• 1-leg connector x 1

Lock end joint of tail. This is the part of the tail that will connect to the mechanical linkage and eventually control the jaw.

• 1-leg connector x 2

Take 2 of the 1-leg connectors and fit the leg of one into the other connector all the way to lock in place.

• 1-leg connector x 1

Fit the tail on the body. Flip the tiny rex's body to the reverse side then lock with a 1-leg connector. This joint is for securing the tail to the body with free-range of motion.

• Orange straw (8 cm) x 1

Connect a straw between the joints of the jaw and tail. Think of the rigid, cardboard tail, jaw, and orange straw as links joined together with rotational joints forming a mechanical linkage.

Not attached to the straw, the 2 moving joints holding down the jaw and tail to the body are called pivot points. These pivot points fixed in place, yet the round hole enables rotation. This means the links still move in a 360 degree motion with the pivot joint remaining in its original place.

Try pushing the tail down. Notice the straw is pushed up and lifts the end of the jaw. Notice on the side of the jaw that is the mouth open.

Fold the feet where the cut slot in the middle is. Then slide the body between the feet to hold like a stand. Draw an eye directly on the cardboard or on a piece of paper then tape on.

Crank the tail animating a roar from the mighty, tiny rex!

From the template, trace the linkage on cardboard and poke holes. With the linkage place on top of flat slots of jaw and tail. Insert brads from the back side, then open.

Place the connected jaw and tail on top of the body, aligning the holes over each other. Then slide a brad from the top down and then open.