Introduction: Playing With Junk P-4 Egg Cartons Special

Initially I wanted to call this episode Egg Cartons Tensegrity, but after reading the definition carefully I realised that the thing I've made is some kind of another thing. Well... it changes nothing anyway.

So, as the title suggests this time I've been playing with some regular paper egg cartons. There's a bunch of ways of how you can recycle those, like... give them for recycling - they are made of paper after all. But also you can add them into your compost bin, grow seedlings inside, turn them into paper mash or fire briquettes, and do a whole bunch of different things. And since it all has already been done and demonstrated by others, I wanted to try and find something else.

Step 1:

The first thing I tried didn't work, so here's the second one.

But firstly I have to clarify that all cartons I have came on in full sqare piece but in cut into sections, because this is how the egs are sold here. So this is what I had to work with.

So, if you take four sections and owelap their ends to form a cross as shown on the photo, and then bend them and connect opposite ends in a similar way - you'll get a star! Or a flower - it depends on how to look at it.

You can pop a popsicle stick through the middle and secure it with dabs of hot glue on both ends. You can also paint your creation to make it look more like an actual flower.

This can be extremelly cheep and quick to make decoration. I guess.

Step 2:

As you can see I have run out of ideas on using cartons solely for the project, so decided to bring some corks to the game.

Using a hot glue I have glued the corks to the peeks on the back side of the carton section. Then I have added another section simmetrical to it.

Thinking what i can further do to this I decided to add two more carton sections facing the applyed ones. It resulted in an interesting structure.

Step 3:

But those holes on the sided looked like they wanted to be utilized in some way, so I have placed some rolls of paper inside. Now you should be able to connect multiple structure modules by shish-kebabing them onto the rolls, and, if you'll imagine those rolls long enough - you'll probably will be able to envision a whole walls made of this stuff. Some other stuff be used to fill in between the sections, like used socks, or, more likely, that building insulating spray foam a proper name of which I have forgot.Will it be any practical? I have no idea.

Step 4:

But being a person, who rarely knows when to stop, and also a person having an unopened new pack of rubber bands I decided to do a redundant thing. Although it wasn't a totatly futile movement of mind since at this point I've realized that I could make the whole thing without using glue at all.

Step 5:

So, I starded anew with a second construction.

Firstly I've connected two pairs of cartons with pieces facing one another. There's at least a couple of ways you can apply rubber bands here, as well as at further steps. I don't which is better.

Then I've connected those together. Now they were holding together by tension.

As to the corks - I simply jammed them on places by spreading the carton sections apart.

Beside the positioning of the rubber bands this structure is the same as the previous structure.

Step 6:

And here the similar thing has been done to only two sections of cartons. Not sure if anything more could be done to it.

Step 7:

And here are three smaller, less interesting pieces I tried.

The last two were made with a paper roll from used scotch tape.

Step 8:

And to finish here's this somewhat interesting piece. Here two egg carton sections are separated by two thin paper rolls. While fiddling with it I've discovered that it moves in an interesting pattern. If you apply force to "slide" opposite surfaces against each other the pattern of cartons will shift and at the end of the movement peeks on one side will stop on the next ones on ... watch the video. Posibly it solves an egineering problem humanity had never known yet.

Step 9:

And this is it for todays playing with junk. I've been working on other projects besides these series but two of them I wanted to present recently didn't quite worked out and require either buying some stuff or rethinking previous decisions... which I may or may not do, like today...

Anyway, this is it for now, thanks for your attention, and Klaatu barada nikto.

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