CARDBOARD SOCCER BALL?

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:06][music] >> Thomas here with much props. Going to give you another how-to video. Today, I am building a cardboard soccer ball. And if that offends you, how about a football? Or if that offends you, how about a truncated icosahedron?

[00:00:31]Basically, a geometric shape that is composed of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons. And it is something that is played around the world. So, I to give you reason why I want to um I've been working with my kids in my classes. I'm a junior high teacher by day. So, we've been doing cardboard projects for about the past month. My kids got to pick from a couple of the masks that I have produced here on the channel and have been building them themselves in class time. So, as I have been making examples along with them and helping them out with their projects, I got kind of bored of doing the masks.

[00:01:07]So, I started looking for other stuff to possibly do and got kind of in that cardboard mode. So, I wanted to find something that looked complicated, but was actually relatively simple and this came to mind. So, we are going to make a soccer ball out of cardboard. Uh it is Teacher Appreciation Week. So, if you are a co-worker of mine, stay tuned to the end of the video for a surprise giveaway. You must be employed at the same school I'm employed at and you must send me an email responding to this video.

[00:01:39]So, if you're not disregard this. So, without further ado, let's make a soccer ball.

[00:01:46]Most people look at cardboard and see trash. Working at a low socioeconomic school, see cardboard as possibility.

[00:01:54]This week at school, my students were building cardboard masks and after making a bunch of those with them, I got inspired. So for this build, I wanted to make something completely out of cardboard, something creative, something nostalgic, something that reminds me of the people who shaped me growing up. So today on Much Props, I'm going to build a hand-painted cardboard soccer ball covered with classic '90s cartoon characters. Woo! And because it's Teacher Appreciation Week, this one is for the teachers who helped build me before I ever built props. Every soccer ball starts with a pattern, 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons and a whole bunch of cardboard scrap. Honestly, teaching feels a lot like the process sometimes.

[00:02:36]You spend hours [music] cutting, shaping, planning, preparing, hoping all the pieces eventually come together into something meaningful. And growing up, I had teachers that did just that for me.

[00:02:45]Teachers who stayed late, teachers who encouraged creativity, teachers who made school feel safe, teachers who probably had no idea how much they mattered at the time. As a middle school art teacher, now I understand that effort way more than I used to. Sometimes students only remember one small moment, but teachers spend years building those moments piece by piece.

[00:03:33]Now comes the fun part and slightly confusing. Every pentagon has to be surrounded by five hexagons to make the shape work correctly. And let me tell you, cardboard absolutely fights back during this stage. But once the pieces finally start connecting, you can see the whole thing come alive. and that's [music] another thing I've learned about from teaching. Students don't always grow in obvious ways right away.

[00:03:58]Sometimes you don't see the full picture until much later. A good teacher helps connect the pieces, confidence, curiosity, creativity, and discipline.

[00:04:07]And eventually those little moments shape who a student becomes. I can honestly trace a lot of who I am today because of teachers who believed in me before I believed in myself.

[00:05:04]I spray painted the cardboard with a light shade of blue transition to a darker shade.

[00:05:12]Next on the paint job is painting the 12 pentagons orange. And while orange paint over a dark blue does take forever, three coats to be exact, and even that wasn't a full coat, but I knew I was going to draw characters over it, so I figured it'd be okay. But sometimes the best things take layers, and teaching definitely works that way, too. You rarely change a student's life with one lesson. It happens through repetition, encouragement, consistency, day after day, year after year. And somewhere along the way teachers leave fingerprints on people they have never fully realized they impacted.

[00:06:42]Now for my favorite part of the entire build. I had a friend help me make a nice list of classic 90s nostalgia and started picking out random characters from each of the cartoons. Now, my list is by no means a complete list of my favorites, but it definitely encompasses quite a bit of my childhood. The cartoons I grew up watching after school, the ones that made being a weird creative kid feel awesome. And honestly, a lot of my teachers encouraged that creativity, too. I had an art teacher who let me experiment, teachers who laughed at my dumb sketches, teachers who gave me space to be imaginative instead of telling me to stop doodling.

[00:07:22]Without people like that, there probably isn't a much props channel today. So, if you're a teacher watching this, thank you. Even on the exhausting days, even when it feels unnoticed, even when students don't say it out loud, you matter more than you know. Great teachers see potential before anyone else does. They You look at a student who's struggling, distracted, insecure, completely uninterested, and still see who the kid could be someday. That kind of patience changes lives.

[00:08:44]To finish off this soccer ball, I added some simple cell shading effects to the remaining panels to really push that cartoonish look. And honestly, this build turned into way more than just a cardboard soccer ball. It became a reminder that creativity usually starts with someone encouraging it. A parent, a mentor, a coach, a teacher. People who take ordinary materials, ordinary kids, and help turn them into something extraordinary. So, to every teacher out there, past and present, thank you for helping shape the people we become. And to my students, I hope I can be even half as good as the teachers I was lucky enough to have. If you enjoy this build, hit the like button, subscribe to Much Props, and let me know what I should build next. And remember to thank a teacher, because their hard work often goes unnoticed, or underappreciated, or underfunded, and they have to scramble and give you the best that they can with what they can. Thanks for watching.

[00:09:56]If you are a co-worker of mine watching this video and you've made it this far, I would like for you to email me custom soccer ball in the title and tell me if you'd like this soccer ball or one customly made for you and I'll deliver it. First person wins.

[00:10:12]And we are finished. Here is the end result. Overall, I think it turned out pretty cool. I definitely like the paint job, the blue and orange. It's a great contrast and putting that 90s nostalgia on it definitely kind of hit home.

[00:10:27]Uh I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so a lot of these were go-to's for me definitely as a kid and brought back some pretty fun memories, but yeah.

[00:10:36]Maybe you'll try to make one of these yourselves and impress your friends with your ability to draw a bunch of cartoon faces onto a soccer ball that's made out of cardboard that's flat and it doesn't look too derpy at a distance at the right angle.

[00:10:50]Maybe.

[00:10:52]Maybe you'll get some >> Yay!

[00:10:55]And inevitably they're going to ask you, "How'd you make that?"

[00:10:59]You can give them one of these, tell them, much props.

[00:11:04]Let's see if we can actually use this thing.

[00:11:10]>> [music] >> Yeah, I need to work on my soccer skills.

[00:11:13]Peace out.

[00:11:19]>> [music] >> If you enjoy what I do here on YouTube and you want to see more builds like this one, please consider joining these awesome people listed here with me over on my Patreon to build a bigger, better, more creative community together.

[00:11:48]>> [music]