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Help Me Turn My Backyard into an Awesome Obstacle Course
Sir Landshark
resting shark faceRegistered User regular
resting shark faceRegistered User regular
Hey everyone! You may remember me from last year's thread where my kids and I turned our home into a series of forts https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/221712/help-me-turn-my-home-into-an-awesome-fort
Anyways, my wife is doing another 4 day trip this year so I came up with a new fun project for the weekend. We're going to make a giant obstacle course in the backyard!
So I'm coming here again to get ideas for cheap/easy obstacles to make. The kids have already suggested a balance beam and something to jump over. We have a playhouse in one corner of the yard with monkey bars, swings and a slide that we can integrate into the course somehow as well. The goal is to get some sort of shopping list together for tomorrow, such that I can go out and buy materials while they are all at school. Then we can spend Friday evening and Saturday putting everything together!
I have limited powertools (just a drill really), but might be able to borrow some from a neighbor.
Anyways, my wife is doing another 4 day trip this year so I came up with a new fun project for the weekend. We're going to make a giant obstacle course in the backyard!
So I'm coming here again to get ideas for cheap/easy obstacles to make. The kids have already suggested a balance beam and something to jump over. We have a playhouse in one corner of the yard with monkey bars, swings and a slide that we can integrate into the course somehow as well. The goal is to get some sort of shopping list together for tomorrow, such that I can go out and buy materials while they are all at school. Then we can spend Friday evening and Saturday putting everything together!
I have limited powertools (just a drill really), but might be able to borrow some from a neighbor.
Please consider the environment before printing this post.
Sir Landshark on
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Ideally, you want to make it a mix of obstacles and skills.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
but they're listening to every word I say
or actual barbed wire. that'll teach them
You can do a sort of biathalon with nerf guns. after monkey bars they need to hit some targets or something.
they have "balance rocks" clicky
dizzy bat
breakable wall they have to burst through.
pool noodle/elastic rope maze/web they have to push through
really just go watch like american gladiators and make it kid version
One thing if you're looking for cheap supplies is see if any business near by is getting rid of scrap pallets. You cam prop them up and make angled boards to jump between, or remove various sides of them to make teeter-totter like platforms. Just watch for nails.
So like, plant some PVC in the ground and string up twine between the pipes? Might have to do this one!
We have those balance rocks. Guess I can spread them out and have them jump from rock to rock without touching the ground.
We have about 10 pool noodles from when #1 had a sleepover party and the kids used them to play muggle quidditch. Not sure how I would set them up as a maze though.
There's only one of me and there's 3 of them.
I wonder if there's a good way to get tires for cheap. Could do a few things with those.
on the cheap, you could string some clothesline or other cord through them and tie off to some obstacle/pole. If you do it randomly and crossed with each other it would be varied. Though something elastic could be funner.
Oh, you you go to home depot or whatever you can get like 4 foot wide rolls of painters paper, you attach that between to rods or something and they have to burst through it.
ooooh or remember that one double dare game where you had to punch your hand into a hole to fish out a key or something. you should do something like that.
It's basically just rope between two trees, like this:
And then your job is to pick a hole and pass through it without touching the ropes. But then, you also need to get your whole team through, and no one can use the same hole.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Could buy the "slime" that used to come with TMNT toys back in the day but it's now packaged standalone to make the hole extra gross.
Slime is always fun, but if you're integrating slime into your obstacle course it may be cheaper (or at least more fun) to make your own.
Lots of recipes using regular stuff, you probably have 90% of the stuff already laying around not being used as slime.
I was thinking like, affix them horizontally between two things like a gate or a series of chairs, so that they get kinda bonked by noodles when they run through it.