When I was a little girl, I would go to my Grandparent's house while my parent's were at work. They had plenty of games and movies that I would frequently watch. However, I liked to play with the game which was not necessarily a child's game. My Grandfather had a wood labyrinth maze game. I would always play this game, especially with my Aunt. I could sit there for hours playing, trying to get from start to finish successfully. When we were asked to pick a toy from our childhood which we could re-create, I automatically thought of this game. Anyone, any age can play it, but I loved it hen i was a kid.
Since I already knew what the game was, there was really no research for me to do. I found a picture online to work off of. The game is rectangular shaped, there for a chose a cereal box to be the base of my project. I cut the top off of the box and made multiple wholes in it. I then used magazine pages that had graphics of wood on it to create the wood effect on the box. I realized that once the ball fell through the whole it had to come back out somehow. I cut two aluminum cans in half and I layered them on top of each other so that the ramp was the same length of the box. However, the ramp is only in the center of the box, so I needed other ramps on either side of the aluminum to lead the ball into the aluminum ramp. I used another cereal box for this part. This was helpful because when a ball falls through a whole on the edge of the box it will not just drop to the bottom, but rather roll into the ramp and out of the whole. Next, I used small pieces of wood to make the bumpers on the top of the labyrinth. I also used the wood to make a holder for the ball when it drops out of the whole. Lastly, I drew a path with marker that the ball should follow.
I liked this project a lot actually. One reason is because my game is actually functional. I can play it if I wanted to. I liked making something that I used to play as a child. While I made it, it brought back memories from when I was little and and would play with the labyrinth for hours. One of my difficulties while making this was trying to make a ramp for the ball to go down. I tried using all aluminum cans, but they didn't work. I tried using water bottles, but some of the bottles weren't perfectly round so the ball would get stuck. I finally realized that the cereal box was the most flexible to make a ramp that would lead to the aluminum ramp. I liked making the actually maze and adding the wooden bumpers. If I had the chance t do the project over again I would make the same thing because I enjoyed doing it.
