Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Make A Shoot to Win Arcade Game From Trash

This is not supposed to be your girlfriend.

A friend of mine at work got this little mini hoops thing that was not being put to use, so seeing as I have no social life and ample loads of duck tape and loads of love for the only Canadian worth his salt (MacGyver) I decided to figure out how to turn it into one of my favorite childhood games. Shoot To Win. You know, the thing at Chucky Cheese where you have to make the basket but never could, cause you were smaller than everyone else and rolled off your fingers like a little pansy? Well, at least it did for me.

Fear no more.

Now you can make your own after the instructional provided after the jump. And you can place it as close as you want! No more far away shots that you'll never make. no worries about tickets you can't buy beer with. It serves to build your confidence and everything.
All you need is a mini hoop, some ducktape and some drunken ingenuity. It works quite well and I am a MacGyver genius. Especially after you see the video after the jump as proof. Just kidding I am not quite well. But you'll be surprised at the result.


So it starts off by getting your mini hoop. Get that affixed it to a chair. Any chair that you used to have that no one will be using because no one uses any chairs in your house except your recliner that you sleep, shave and watch TV in. Oh, and it has to be wood. Guess they call them dinner chairs? Table chairs cause they are around a table? Whatever, I don't use them anymore. I forget. Better if it's wood and has slats, you'll need this to create the wire hanger guides which will descend towards the bottom so the ball comes back to you after you miss constantly. (So you don't ever have to leave your recliner to pick it up.) This is key.

Wrap the hanger so they create a guide at an approximate 45 degree descension to rest your netting on.
(Comes later.) Make it tight, also important.

Find something stiff, a piece of cardboard or something that will have a slight bend with time. Bend it 2/3 rds of the ways. Duck tape this to the front. This will provide the descent in which it falls back to you. This is important, too. (If it is a long shot you desire, make it stiff and only slightly bent. This will cause for a longer roll. If not, God help you. you are shooting buckets two feet from your ashtray.)

Now, for your net (not the one around the rim, mini hoop should come with this) that will serve as the catch and the chute to put it in the same direction of your poison of choice. When the ball falls, it should fall right next to your vice so you can pick the ball up and if you make it or depending on how bad your aim is, (this is the point of having Shootin Hoops in your house) treat yourself to your vice or console yourself in your defeat. You make the rules, (REWARD OR PUNISHMENT), I just break them.

In order to make it I used a rubber rug stop from IKEA that I had two of. I draped it around the wire hanger descending ever so slightly so it was taught at the beginning but drooped towards the middle...much like many of the intimate moments of my life which is weird now that I think of it. The link is above above but if you don't have the $1.99 I'm sure you have a bloody sheet or a trashbag that will achieve the same affect.

Affix the net to the top of the chair close the backboard. Make sure it's close to the top so it creates a ridge around the wire guides. It's hard to explain. Just see the video. No special effects. Try and make a better one and put it in the comments, I have an amazing one to beat yours. I dare you. Don't expect much from that statement cause I'm sure that there as many reading this as there were who followed Winter Olympics Curling, but I like to build myself up before I let myself down.

Peace.



1 comment:

Detex said...

Nice! I am going to build one... Now all we need is skiball...