Step by step

Step 1

Push a cocktail stick a little way into the balls used for the Sun and each of the planets, making sure you leave enough sticking out to push them into the ground. With the smaller planets, take care not to push the stick all the way through.

Step 2

Paint the models using acrylic or water-based paint. We painted the Sun yellow, Venus light orange, Earth medium blue, Mars red, Jupiter light brown, Saturn light yellow, Neptune dark blue and Uranus light blue. Stick them into a polystyrene block to dry.

Step 3

To create the asteroid belt, use PVA glue to stick different sizes of stone chips to the piece of clear plastic or card. Although the asteroid belt covers a vast area, there are huge spaces between each asteroid, so we kept our stones well-spaced.

Step 4

Choose a large, clear, level section of ground and anchor the tape measure at one end using a barbecue skewer. Then extend it out to 10m, marking the 10m-point with a cocktail stick. You can remove the tape measure once you’ve added the planets.

Step 5

Push the Sun into the grass at the start of the measured 10m. Make sure you are holding the stick rather than the ball when pushing into the ground. Each of the sticks will prevent the planets and Sun from blowing around if it’s windy.

Step 6

Push the rest of the planets into the grass at the distances listed in the supplied table (see page 5 for download details) and lay the asteroid belt down 73cm from the Sun. Take time to explore the model and appreciate the vastness of our Solar System.