Cardboard Hip-Hop Boombox

For my little girl's summer camp, the kids are asked to dress up in the theme "Hip-Hop". That would involve big golden chains (still need to pass by the hardware store for that), oversized T-shirts,... and a boombox!

As an alternative to a real boombox, I decided to make one out of cardboard (with her assistance, of course). How we did this, is described in this Instructable. I hope you enjoy it!

For this project, I have used the following material:

• Cardboard box of "boombox" size (I used a box from a computer screen I found at the office and "downsized" it);
• Paint (for the box itself) in desired colours (I mixed black and white fingerpaint to get the shade of gray we liked);
• Coloured cardboard/paper in desired colours (I used black, blue, purple, red, gray, and green);
• Glue (suited for paper and cardboard).

The following tools come in handy:

• Compass (or plate / glass of the correct size) to draw the circles for the loudspeakers and volume button;
• Cutter knife (mind your fingers!) to "downsize" the cardboard box, if necessary;
• Scissors;
• Pencils (incl. a white one);
• Black marker or sharpie;
• Paint brush;
• Ruler.

In this step, I list a few optional ways to prepare your cardboard box, before starting with the real work. This entails downsizing it to the right size and covering any tape (to which the paint may not stick). The picture shows the prepared box with the handle already attached to it. How to make (and attach) the handle, is explained in the next step.

Downsizing the box

It's convenient if you can find a box that is of the "right" size, but if you cannot, it is always possible to make a large box smaller. Enter: cutter knife and duct tape (or other sturdy tape). Careful with your fingers, though!

In my case, I shortened the box in one dimension and ended up with a boombox of 47 x 33 x 23 cm.

Covering any tape

Even if you do not alter the size of your cardboard box, it is likely that there will be some tape on it. To make sure that my (finger)paint would stick to it, I glued pieces of a newspapers over it. If you have better paint that does stick to tape, you can skip this step.

For the handle, I cut a cardboard strip of 4 x 42cm, which (in the latter dimension) I folded in 5 + 6 + 20 + 6 + 5 cm. That way you have the handle + a strip of cardboard on both ends, with which you can attach the handle to the (boom)box.

To make the handle less fragile, I wrapped duct tape around it. I also used duct tape to attach the handle to the box (using the extra strips at the ends).

The only paint, suited for cardboard, we had lying around, was fingerpaint. I mixed black and white paint to the desired shade of gray and let my daughter do the painting.

Now that we have a rudimentary boombox (nicely painted but with only the handle), it is time make the components for the front panel. Think: loudspeakers, volume button, something to change the radio channel, room for a cassette, and buttons to command it:

• The loudspeakers (there's two of them) consist of a black paper circle (with a diameter of 17cm) onto which I glued a blue paper circle (with a diameter of 7.5cm).
• The red 10 x 8cm piece of paper is supposed to become the cassette deck. The dark blue paper rectangle (7.5 x 3.5cm) is the little window through which you can see the cassette. I drew on the two wheels of the cassette...
• On the gray paper rectangle (10 x 2cm) I drew 4 squares (of 1 x 1cm), which represent the stop, rewind, play, and fast forward buttons.
• The cassette deck and buttons will be glued on a purple piece of paper (16 x 11.5cm), onto which I drew a couple of vertical lines of 5cm, with a black rectangle for a button, so you can tune the sound of your boombox.
• A red paper circle (with a diameter of 5cm) will serve as volume button. I drew on a fat dot to indicate the volume level.
• The green rectangle (of 27 x 4cm), onto which I drew a fat black line, is used to change radio channels, by means of the slider button, made up of a gray rectangle of about 1 x 3cm.
• Two rectangles (a red one and a black one) of 1 x 3.5cm serve as buttons to choose between radio and cassette, so I wrote (with a white pencil) "tuner" and "tape" on them.

Time to get out the glue and stick all the components to the front panel of your boombox! Have a look at the picture to see how ours turned out!

As a small detail, I drew on a connection for some old-school headphones.