SUPERHERO
SIGNAL
PROJECTOR
Making Time: 45 minutes
Age Group: All Ages
Project Designer: Lizzie Hurst
What’s your signal?
The Bat-Signal is a signaling device used in DC Comics as a means to summon Batman. It’s a searchlight with an emblem of a bat affixed to it, allowing it to project a giant bat symbol onto city skies. When the Bat-Signal is projected, Batman swoops in.
You are a force of good in your community. What is your personal superhero emblem or emoji? What signal do you want handy in daily life to summon bravery, hope and love, using only the flashlight from your phone and a toilet paper roll…?!
Follow these steps to build a mobile signalling device and design your own unique signal using tools and materials you already have at home.
Project
Overview:
Start by brainstorming. What’s a symbol that could represent positive energy, identity, love, change, or bright futures in the context of your home, religion, community, or in the world?
Make some sketches!
Here are some some examples of superhero emblems from comic books. Notice that they are all simple, bold, and include some recognizable shapes, letters or symbols...
Brainstorm:
Prepare
Your Workspace:
Set up your work space. Clear a surface on a table top where you can work.
Make sure you have some scrap material covering your surface to keep it clean (magazines, newspaper, cardboard, plastic trash bag...)
Make sure to ask other people who are using the space if it’s OK for you to set up there!
Gather Supplies:
Gather MORE Supplies:
Gather MORE Supplies:
Gather MORE Supplies:
NOW LET’S BEGIN
MAKING YOUR SIGNAL PROJECTOR
Step 1:
Lay the top half of your phone onto a piece of scrap cardboard, and trace around the phone.
Step 2:
Cut out the resulting shape! Then, make a mark on the piece of cardboard where the flashlight is on your phone.
You’ll be using the phone flashlight to project your signal!
Step 3:
Place a toilet paper roll on top of the cardboard, right over the dot you made for your flashlight bulb. Trace a circle around the TP roll.
The results should look like this!
Step 4:
Cut out the TP roll hole!
(To make things easier, I just cut into the cardboard to start my circle, and then taped it up afterwards!)
Step 5:
Draw a line all the way around the bottom of the toilet paper roll, about a pinky’s width in from the edge.
TIP FOR AN EVEN LINE:
I taped my marker to the table, and spun my toilet paper roll against a flat surface with the marker touching it...
Step 3:
Then, draw little teeth marks all along the line you just made. It should look like this!
The lines that I drew in red will need to be cut with scissors. Don’t cut along the black line - it’s just there to tell you how deep to cut!
The end result will look something like this.
Step 4:
Staple and/or tape the tube over the hole you cut in your flat cardboard. I used both staples and tape!
Step 5:
Wrap two rubber bands around the cardboard on either side of the TP roll. These rubber bands will hold the signal projector onto your phone! Staple or tape the rubber bands into place on the cardboard.
Step 6:
Press the ends of the TP roll together to flatten it, and draw two lines that almost meet in the middle. Leave about a pinky’s width between them!
Leave this tiny bit of space in the middle!
Step 7:
Then, use your scissors to cut into the TP roll along the lines you just drew, on each side.
When you stop pinching the ends together, it’ll look like this.
The goal is to have an opening on either side of the tube so that a strip of clear plastic can slide into it like this!
TP roll
front view!
Clear plastic strip of any length!
CUT HERE
CUT HERE
Step 8:
Find some clear plastic from an egg carton or other food container. Cut it into a strip that is thin enough to fit through the cuts you just made!
I held the end of the plastic up to the TP roll to measure.
Clear Plastic
Step 9:
Slide the plastic strip into the tube to make sure it fits!
(Look carefully and you can see the plastic strip, it’s there!)
Step 10:
Stapling some scrap cardboard onto the end of the plastic can make it easier to see and help prevent the plastic strip from falling out of the TP roll!
Step 11:
MAKING SYMBOLS WITH PAPER AND GLUE
There are two main ways to make the symbol for your signals! You can use either paper and glue or permanent markers. (Skip ahead to Step 14 if you want to use markers instead!)
If you want to cut shapes for your signal projector out of paper, trace the thickness of the plastic strip on to some scrap paper!
PLASTIC STRIP
Step 12:
MAKING SYMBOLS WITH PAPER AND GLUE
Draw your shapes! Cut em out with scissors! Make sure they are just the right size to fit inside your TP roll tube with space around them.
(Maybe you think ice cream is a force of good in the world?)
Step 13:
MAKING SYMBOLS WITH PAPER AND GLUE
Glue your shape (or shapes!) onto the plastic strip!
It should look something like this when you’re done.
Step 14:
MAKING SYMBOLS WITH MARKERS
If you don’t have paper or glue, you can use permanent markers to make your symbols straight onto the plastic instead…
Try putting multiple symbols on one long strip to make a more versatile signal projector!
Good Job!
Strap the signal projector onto your phone so that the tube is on top of the flashlight... Turn the flashlight on in a darkened space and try it out!
After you have beamed your symbol into the world, talk to the people around you about how you can make a positive impact!!!
PLEASE SHARE WHAT YOU MADE:
#beamanywhere