Matchy Madness Game Construction

When we were at Dry Gulch this year, one of the games they played in chapel was Matchy Madness.  The kids really enjoyed it.   You can see the details of game (and a demo video) on the Seeds blog site:  http://seeds.churchonthemove.com/blog/post/218

We downloaded the files provided by SEEDS and played the game in our Kid's church this past weekend.  While my wife (kid's pastor) may have been happy with the results, I just didn't like the way it played.  It was just a pair of foam boards with 9 laminated pages on each board.  We had some issues getting the pages to stay on the foam board.  I was thinking about an easy way to make a better solution.  So I came up with the following design:



I'm just using standard 4" X 1" X 8' boards.  Pretty much the cheapest thing I could find at Home Depot.  I think they were $1.90 or so each.  Just remember, even though they are listed as 4" X 1", they are actually 3.5" X 3/4" X 8'

Here's the cut list.  For each board it will take three 8 foot boards.



This doesn't include the pieces of wood that will go into the holes or the backing, but we'll get to that later.

I cut my pieces of wood and put them together using my Kreg Jig.  If you haven't used a Kreg jig before, it is by far the easiest way to quickly join two pieces of wood together.  I won't go into to details on how to use it as there is tons of info on the web already.

After I put it together, here is the (partially) finished product:



Here's the same thing, but from the back so you can see the pocket holes that hold the wood together.



The next step is to add a back.  I used some scrap wood for the back.  Doesn't look pretty and the wood doesn't fit exactly, but it covers the empty spots when viewed from the front:

 

Next I cut the inserts (doors, covers, or whatever you want to call them).  In theory they should be 7" X 7", but you'll need to make them 6 7/8" or 6 15/16" so you've got a little wiggle room to get them installed.  Just make them almost 7" X 7" and try them.  If you are like me, every opening will be a little different sized.  Here's mine with the inserts and then with the inserts installed:

  

At this point, the first one is almost finished.  So I sanded the rough/sharp edges, primed and painted it.  If I ever wished for interns this would be the point.  I love creating anything, but I hate putting on primer and hate painting.  But you do what you gotta do.

Here's a picture of one side of the gameboard after painting without the inserts:



Here's the inserts drying:



I had initially wanted to add drawer pulls on the inserts to make it easy to pull them out and insert them into the gameboard, but the cheapest ones I could find were $1 each.  While it doesn't sound like much, I didn't want to add $20 to the build cost.  So I just used screws.  I put them in just far enough to hold, but still have something to hold on to.  You can see one of the inserts with the screw in the above picture.

I added some used 2X4's to make the stand for each gameboard.  My wife added the numbers (actually printed from the SEEDS download).  Overall, it worked out pretty well.

Here's a picture of the game setup in our Kid's room:



Funny thing.  I had been telling my wife about how I planned to do it.  I guess I didn't explain myself very well.  When she saw it for the first time, she said.  Oh I thought the boards would just flip around the reveal the picture (think Wheel of Fortune).  DOH.  Why didn't I think of that.  I actually like that idea much better.  Maybe I'll work on that for a Wheel of MisFortune game in the future.

I'm planning to also put up a couple of posts showing some other games I've built (Wheel of WOW, and Plinko).  I don't have a whole lot of construction photos on some of them, but you'll possibly get some ideas.