This week our guest blogger is professional foosball player Mark from Foosball Zone, Mark’s blogs cover everything from different foosball tables (one size does not fit all) to tips and tricks and even how to make your own.

Playing Foosball is a fun family activity (check out this mini version) and making your own foosball table is a great way to get the kids involved with the whole process.

“There is no better way to bond with your children that to get involved in a special, one-of-a-kind project. The DIY project is precisely like that and this project is simple enough for your kids to make it with you which means you all will have loads of fun.

The main goal of this project is to make a game from a cardboard box which resembles a real foosball table.”

If you want to make a foosball game you will need:

1 shoebox

6 wooden round sticks

10 wooden pegs (or reuse old plastic ones)

1 ball for the game

Scissors or utility knife

Glue and clear tape

What do you need to do?

Pick one shoebox you have lying around and make 3 holes on each side of the shoebox. The holes should be big enough for wooden sticks to go through. Also, keep in mind that you should make holes in the same distance through the entire shoebox. On shorter sides, you have to make bigger holes because those will be goals. That means that the holes should be big enough for 2 balls to come through.

Now that you made holes, you can give your children the shoebox so they can decorate it. They can draw football balls, players, crowd or they can simply color it in one color. That is entirely up to you and your family.

You don’t need the shoebox anymore so you can continue to work on the rods. They are pretty simple to make because they are basically done. Rods are the wooden round sticks you can buy in home improvement stores or the stores with craft products. Keep in mind that they should be longer than the box and they should fit in the holes you made on the box. Use wooden sticks and colour them in two colours so you can separate the teams by the rods.

For the players, you will use wooden pegs. Just like the rods, the players are basically done; all you need to do is to fix them to the rods. But, before fixing them you have to divide them into two teams. If you used wooden pegs you can give them to your kids and let them colour. Half pegs colour in one and the other half in other colour and let them dry.

When everything is dry, take the shoebox and put the rods in holes and fix the players to the rods. The best way to do that is to fix them with glue. Again, let the glue dry and after few hours your foosball game is ready.

Enjoy!