SALISBURY, N.C. — Jashon Lambert, a 15-year-old at Salisbury High School, has always had the mind of an engineer.
Ever since Lambert was young, his mom, Monique Riley, noticed her son had a creative side.
“It started from him just wanting to build little swords and little helmets out of cardboard little things for his sister and for aunt and everyone in Alabama,” Riley said.
Eventually, Lambert’s love for tinkering with cardboard cutouts grew into a larger project that even Riley could never predict.
“One day he said he wanted to build an Iron Man suit. So I’m thinking, ‘OK maybe like a little figurine Iron Man’ but not to the capacity that he was thinking,” Riley said. “So, we started going to like the local stores and getting the cardboard and the hot glue gun and it kind of took off from there.”
Lambert said the idea for the suit came when he started noticing cosplay players. He had been watching Iron Man, so he just kind of merged the two ideas together.
The 9th-grade student noted that many of the cosplay costumes were created from plastic and fabric. Lambert knew his family didn’t have the money to create a costume from those materials.
Instead of feeling defeated, Lambert quickly realized he could make his suit from just cardboard and hot glue.
But first, he would need a little help from the internet.
“I took to YouTube to help with some of the problems I had or ran into and it definitely helped me in a lot of ways,” Lambert said. “I even took to the community of Instagram and asked people for help on what they did to make their costumes.”
If you ask Lambert’s mom, she would say her son’s room almost always looks like chaos. Cardboard scraps scattered everywhere. But Lambert calls his process “organized chaos.”
“I would make a process for myself that I could understand,” Riley said. “I would have my paper patterns that are needed and then I would have my cardboard pieces and then I would have some of the finished product.”
Lambert’s passion for his Iron Man design really shines through with the finished product. The intricate details really make the suit something special. But it doesn’t come without any challenges along the way.
“You definitely learn how to deal with your frustrations, and you definitely learn from your mistakes and how not to do it again,” Lambert recalled.
This is actually Lambert's second Iron Man suit. The 15-year-old knew he could improve on his previous design.
Lambert hoped he could wear his second Iron Man suit to the Endgame premier. Unfortunately, Lambert caught pneumonia sometime during the process and had to put the project on hold.
It took about a month a half for Lambert to finish his Iron Man suit. Once completed, Lambert decided to take it with him to the Cheerwine Festival.
“I got suited up in the Rent-A-Center, and I went out and walked on the sidewalk up by the Cheerwine Festival,” Lambert said. “I got kids pointing and I got people cheering for me. It was a positive attitude and just a really good time.”
Lambert said while the suit made him feel good, he also noticed his suit made others around him happy too.
“By the sounds that they made they were definitely impressed,” Lambert said. “I got people asking me was it hot in there? It made me laugh a lot.”
Riley said she’s ecstatic that her son has taken on a project that doesn’t include sitting in front of the TV playing video games.
“You know for me to see him do something other than the video games and to see him actually get into something is great,” Riley said. “He was so passionate about this Ironman suit.”
When Lambert started constructing his first Iron Man, he would go to the Dollar Tree or Walmart and pick up small boxes. Lambert quickly realized the small boxes just wouldn’t cut it and needed something bigger.
Riley decided to call Rent-A-Center to see if they had any large boxes Lambert could use for his suit.
They did.
Salisbury teen creates Iron Man suit from just cardboard and glue
Riley would drive to Rent-A-Center and pick up large washer boxes. She told them what her son was doing, and they were immediately invested. So, when Lambert finished his Iron Man suit he went back to the store to show all the employees.
Riley said she’s amazed by how smart and resourceful her son is.
“To see him actually do that to that capacity and to see how the world is taking to it. That to me is so amazing,” Riley said.
Riley hopes other families realize that just because you might not have the money for a large fancy costume, doesn’t mean you can’t make something spectacular.
“I think what a lot of people should take from this is it doesn’t take a lot of money to make something big,” Riley said. "And if you see your child going in that direction just go with it. They may end up designing something as beautiful and my son’s Iron Man suit."
Lambert said he hopes to become an engineer when he grows up and said building these suits will only help him in his future endeavors.
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