Mini Maze


Requirements:
  • $ 3.00 - a plank of wood
  • $ 3.00 - <- TOTAL COST

    Tools Required:
  • Piece of paper (or a printout of a maze from a childrens activity book)
  • Paintbrush
  • Some paint for the background
  • T-Square
  • Permanent marker
  • Pencil
  • Pair of Scissors
  • Duct Tape
  • Polyeurathane to waterproof for permanency
  • A halloween picture of a 'hero' and a halloween picture of a 'villian'
    ( I would recommend using a calender - heavier cardstock than paper )

    How It Started Out:

    Even though I dont talk about it very much, I have a small 'childrens only' section of my haunt called 'The Scooby Doo Zone' which has a bunch of pictures of Scooby and the gang and some 'fun and not scary' halloween props. The problem was - the kids were going thru the zone too fast, I wanted to slow them down and give them more things to do. What I had decided on was to give them some easy Scooby-related puzzles for the kids to solve. This would make things more interactive - give the kids some satisfaction over accomplishing something - slow them down - make it more interesting and give the kids something to talk about.
    Also, a more complex maze, with more adult images could be used for queueline distraction. ( People waiting in line should have things to occupy them so the wait doesnt seem as long, if you lack assistants to entertain, a wall of puzzles or jokes ( for example: 'Ten Things You Should Never Do If You Are In A Horror Movie' ) would be a quick, cheap and easy way to keep people pre-occupied. )

    How I Did It:
    STEP 1
    Cut your plywood to the size of the maze that you want. I my case, I went with 36" high and 48" wide.
    ( This is the standard size of my walls in my 'Scooby Doo Zone.' )

    STEP 2
    Paint your piece of wood the appropriate background color. Keep in mind that whatever color you choose for the background, you will need a foreground color that shows up well. ( For example - if you use a black background, then use white or bright yellow for the walls of your maze. )

    STEP 3
    Plan out your maze on paper. Now if you are not a 'puzzle' minded person, then I would recommend a quick trip to Toys R Us and buy a childrens activity book that has a maze in it and use that as reference.

    STEP 4
    Now here is the tough part, you will need to copy your paper maze onto your plank of wood (after the paint dried...)
    I used a projector, but if you dont have one, here is a cheap and easy alternative!
    step A: Count the number of vertical 'columns' in your maze, you will notice that on my piece of paper, I had 10.
    step B: Count the number of horizontal 'rows' in your maze, you will notice that on my piece of paper, I had 10.
    step C: Divide the width in inches by the number of vertical columns (In my case 48" wide / 10 vertical columns = 4.8" wide per column.
    step D: Divide the height in inches by the number of horizontal columns (In my case 36" wide / 10 vertical columns = 3.6" high per column.
    step E: Make a grid on the wood using your T-square and a pencil with every line being the distance you calculated
    step F: Repeat for paper and make a grid on your paper maze using a ruler
    step G: Now you can tell what lines on paper are supposed to line up where on the wood !

    But lets not kid anyone, life would be much easier if you simply went out and bought a projector or borrowed one from a friend...

    STEP 5
    Draw the maze on the board, be sure to use a T-square, becuase you want your lines to be nice and straight, so it has a 'professional' look to it.

    STEP 6
    Ok, so now you have a maze. Now what ? Well, to make it interesting, and to fit the theme of your haunt, it should have a 'hero' and a 'villian' Since this is for my 'Scooby Doo Zone' I used the appropriate images of Shaggy and Scooby trying to escape from the ghost and cut them out. Keep in mind that you dont need to limit yourself to only one villian, you can have a villian at every single 'dead end' to make it more interesting!
    ( I would recommend using a calender - it has a heavier cardstock than paper images. )

    STEP 7
    Glue the 'hero' at the beginning of the maze and the 'villian' at the false exit.

    STEP 8
    Polyeurathane to make sure that it is waterproof and will last forever!

    STEP 9
    You will notice a silver border on my maze, I placed duct tape around the edge to smooth it out so no one would get a splinter and give it more of a framed 'finished' look.



    CONGRATULATIONS! Your done and the kids are ready to solve !









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