Practical 4

Practical 4: Cardboard Joinery Part 2

Using the cardboard joinery techniques we learnt in Practical 3, we were tasked to create a game with cardboard as the material to make a tabletop game!

We decided to make a version of table hockey. The mechanics of the game are fairly simple:

• Each player starts with 6 discs on their side of the board with a corresponding colour. The two players are separated by a barrier with a hole in the middle.
• After a countdown, both players try to get all of the discs on their opponent’s side of the board.
• They can do so by flicking the disc or sliding the disc. Anything goes, as long as it goes through the gap in the board. It doesn’t count if it goes over the middle wall!
• The person that can clear their side of the board of all discs first wins!

To make the board, we had to make several parts for both the game board and the discs.

1. The base of the board itself where the game will be played
2. Outer walls, both short and long edges of the rectangular base board
3. The middle wall with the "goal"
4. Circular discs for both the top and the bottom of the game discs
5. A rounded middle piece we called the filling (because the game discs were similar to Oreo cookies!) to put between the circular discs to give the game discs more thickness and volume

In terms of the quantity of the pieces we made, we had to cut out:

1. One approximately A3-sized piece for the baseboard
2. Two pieces for each side of the rectangle for the outer wall, with the inner layer having slightly shorter dimensions to accommodate for the overlaps in the corners due to the thickness of the outer walls
3. Two identical pieces for the middle wall
4. 24 circular discs of 4 cm in diameter, one for the top and one for the bottom of each game discs, which took a lot longer to cut out than you would think...
5. 12 of the filling pieces, one for each disc. Each one was approximately 12.2 cm in length, which was approximately the circumference of the 4 cm discs.

For the joinery, we had used:

• Slots and tabs to secure the outer walls and the middle wall to the baseboard
• Slots to secure the middle wall to the outer wall, keeping it stable even if it is hit by the discs
• Scoring and bending to make the filling pieces more rounded

Making the Game

The process of making the game was relatively simple, albeit a time-consuming one. Full disclosure: our group almost didn't make the two hour time limit D: Luckily, we were able to get the pieces cut out and the glue to dry out by the time the clock got to zero!

Here are some of the photos we took of our team members hard at work!

Tracing out the circles

Measuring out the middle walls

Tracing out the fillings!

More walls!

Tracing out the tabs and slots to make the second piece, a lot easier than having to re-measure the complicated design

We mentioned earlier that measuring out the different parts, drawing them on the cardboard then cutting them out took the longest, and we weren't kidding - from the time the timer started at 2h 0min all the way to having only 15 minutes remaining, that was all we did.

A look at the fillings after being cut out and scored

These were the circles cut out into smaller squares first to be cut out much more easily into the circles using scissors

Some of the walls were unfortunately not used, since we forgot to add the tabs on them >.<

It was a long and arduous process, but thankfully we already made the parts with the assembly in mind and all it took was a few seconds of slotting in, applying some glue, holding the pieces down and we were done with barely seconds to spare!

Colouring in the discs

Folding out the tabs of the middle wall

A workstation that clearly shows a lot of work done!

Rydrew's taking charge of the assembly over here...

Adding glue to those corners

Holding down the board and the walls after gluing the tabs at the bottom of the board

Finally, after two hours of slashing, drawing, and adhering, our game was finished!

We were out of time by the time we finished the assembly, so whether or not the game worked was a huge Hail Mary by the group. Thankfully, and perhaps more so relieving, it did and it was very fun to play! We are so proud of the hard work we each put into the making of the game and we could have not have done it without each members' valuable effort! Great job team <3