Stage for a 5 year old...

[rjwaldren]

My daughter is a performer. For her 5th B-day on friday we gave her a small karaoke machine. She's a sight to behold, though I question who's been teaching her the moves.

Against my wishes and purely to annoy me, my sister gave her a High School Musical "play hut/stage". Aside from being large and unwieldy, it's made with the usual quality expected from Disney, and completely irrelevant to anything my daughter is into. The gifts were not related or meant to go together, and it's likely that the HSM marketing tool will meet a dumpster in short order.

So the question I was intending to build her a small "stage" about 3x2 and 3" tall, with a color organ in the floor and maybe a rope light around the edge. That much more what she wants. Any suggestions as to a translucent material for the floor, or other ideas for lighting it? Using plexi for the entire floor would get a bit expensive.

[SARGE..g-47]

I sat here and tried to think of something translucent that thick for about 10 minutes. I concluded I am glad I don't have the problem as I really just can't think of anything other than plexi. Sorry I couldn't help but I opened my mind to things I have seen or worked with for 61 years and just came up running on empty.

[gsmittle]

My daughter is a performer. For her 5th B-day on friday we gave her a small karaoke machine. She's a sight to behold, though I question who's been teaching her the moves.
[snip]
So the question I was intending to build her a small "stage" about 3x2 and 3" tall, with a color organ in the floor and maybe a rope light around the edge. That much more what she wants. Any suggestions as to a translucent material for the floor, or other ideas for lighting it? Using plexi for the entire floor would get a bit expensive.

The very few times I've done something like this theatrically, I've had to use plexi. Or mylar on the floor, with lighting straight down to reflect up. That one's a big unwieldy. You're probably fine with just the rope light.

g.

[rjwaldren]

How's this sound... I do have some scrap plexi around that isn't committed to projects already. I'm thinking about building a 2x3 or 2x4 grid kind of like a torsion box to create "light boxes" skinned with 1/2 PB. Then centered on each opening I'd put ~6" plexi square backed with gift wrap film in different colors. Then I could place high output LED, flashlight bulb or low wattage (nightlight) incandescent in each box and drive it with a color organ.

That saves me having to waste a large chunk of plexi and keeps the parts down to things I have on hand. Not the 70's disco floor I was originally thinking but close enough. Paint it a high gloss black and let her go nuts.