Animal Shed

Hey we are Margaret, Georgia, and Drew. We are physics students, and while this project started out as an optional assignment, we had lots of fun being creative and working together. This contest was to make a small space into something more meaningful. We wanted to create a safe space for animals to have a shelter that could protect them more from the elements than nature typically provides. We also wanted to keep in mind a solution that would be both environmentally conscious and realistic We created a model of our animal shelter from recycled cardboard, and below you will find the steps to make one too!

1. 3 Shoe boxes
2. Painter’s tape 
3. X-acto knife
4. Pipe cleaners
5. Hot glue gun and glue sticks
6. White colored pencil
7. Ruler
8. Scissors 
9. Plastic disposable medicine cup
10. Compass 
11. Pencil

1. Unfold shoe box
2. Cut 3 rectangles measuring 10.5” x 7.5” these will become the side walls and the floor.
3. Cut 2 squares measuring 7.5” x 7.5” these will become the front and the back
4. Cut 2 rectangles measuring 10.5” x 4.5” these will become the two sides of the roof
5. Finally cut isosceles 2 triangles with bases of 7.5” and sides of 4.125” these will be front and back of the roof.

Marking:

1. Take the 10.5” x 7.5” rectangle and make a vertical line 3” away from both 7.5” sides, then make two horizontal lines 1.875” away from the 10.5” sides. This should leave you with a centered window measuring 4.5” x 3.75”. Repeat with one other 10.5” x 7.5” rectangle.
2. Next take one of the squares and make a vertical line 0.375” away from the right side, and 4.125” away from the left side, then make a horizontal line 0.5625” away from the top, this will make the front door. 
3. Make a vertical line 0.75” on the inside of both sides of the door and a horizontal line 2.0625” from the bottom, this will make a "doggie" door for the animals to enter through.
4. Make a horizontal line 0.5625” from the top of the door and a horizontal line 1.6875” from the top of the door. Make two vertical lines 0.75” away from the sides of the door, this makes a window at the top of the door
5. Mark the center of the circle 1.875” from the left side of the square and use a compass to make a circle with a radius of 0.9375”, this will make a circle window.

Cutting:

1. To cut the “doggie” door out, make cuts on both sides, but leave the top secured
2. To cut out the door, cut out the top, bottom, and left side of the door.
3. Cut out all of the square and circular window

1. First tape a 10.5’’ edge from the 10.5’’ x 7.5’’ piece with windows to the matching edge of the 10.5’’ floor piece, and repeat on the other side of the floor piece.
2. Tape the edge of the 7.5’’ x 7.5’’ piece to the 7.5’’ edge of the floor to create the back wall
3. Fold up the 3 side walls to create your shed base and tape the remaining edges together
4. After the she base is taped, hot glue the taped edges together to secure it, and then take the painters tape off. 
5. To make the roof the roof tape the long edges of the roof sides (10.5’’ x 4.5’’) and tape it, and tape the triangles to the front and back.
6. Once the roof is taped, hot glue it together to make it sturdy

1. We made two animal beds out of pipe cleaners by weaving multiple strands together to form a bowl shape that is about 2” x 2”
2. We also made two bowls, one for food and one for water. Both were made by cutting plastic disposable medicine cups to be about .5” tall. The water bowl was filled with a blue pipe cleaner and the food bowl was filled with a leftover piece of cardboard.
3. On the roof, we decided to put two solar panels to power anything we needed in the shed. To do this, we cut out two 9” x 3.125” rectangles of cardboard, covered them in painters tape to make them blue, and drew white squares on them for decoration. We glued these pieces on either side of the roof pieces.
4. Next, we added a combined heating and cooling unit that will be powered using the solar panels. To make this, we assembled a small rectangular prism (3” x 0.5” x 0.5”) out of cardboard scraps, glued it together, and ‘installed’ it above one of the windows. We also made the outside unit out of cardboard scraps, by assembling another small rectangular prism (1.5” x 0.5” x 0.5”) and gluing it on the outside of the shed.
5. We used some other cardboard scraps (about 1.5’’ thick) and glued them onto the back wall of the shed to create a climbing ramp/play area for the animals
6. We used some extra pipe cleaners and twisted them together to make some animal toys
7. On the front of the house, we added a cardboard shelf measuring 3” x 0.5”. On top of it we made a small planter made out of a small piece of cardboard wrapped around green pipe cleaners.