[esskay]

Not sure if this is the right forum area for this slightly goofy post, but here goes --

My son is in 2nd grade, and am helping him prepare for a school event. One option is to set up some sort of "game" for other kids in his grade to play, and they earn some sort of credits for kids from other classrooms wanting to play.

It occurred to me that it would be cool to set up some sort of "Nerf Gun IPSC" stage. Has anyone ever done something like this? Would appreciate any ideas or tips.

For instance:
* I have two "buzzsaw" nerf guns, with capacity of only 3 nerf balls. Maybe I need to find models with higher capacity? Any suggestions?

* Ideas for stage design? For instance:
- From box A, there is a barricade with portholes of different shapes (circle, square, triangle). Shooter must knock over like-shaped targets from appropriate porthole. Abandon gun when empty.
- Run around cones or through some other type of fun obstacle to box B, pick up second pre-loaded gun from table. Engage some other targets.
- Or make them think too. Portholes have math problems (e.g. 4x5), shooter has to hit target marked with the right answer. Ok maybe that's going too far.

* How to construct props? Since these are small people, shooting nerf guns, I thought maybe could fashion everything out of cardboard (targets, barricade, etc)? As dedicated a dad as I am, I don't really want to buy a bunch of lumber to make my own proper barricades! Any ideas on good way to make cardboard targets that will fall down reliably from a nerf gun blast?

Or if it's not a workable idea, welcome that feedback too. I'm going to go check out the venue -- might be a type of spot where we'd just lose all the nerf balls or darts within the first 10 minutes, or maybe chasing the balls down all the time would make it too difficult to run? Or maybe the limitations of the nerf guns make it less fun than I'm envisioning in my head?

Thanks guys

This post has been edited by esskay: 10 January 2009 - 04:20 AM

[esskay]

BTW, this is the "buzzsaw" nerf gun:

Nerf N-Strike Buzzsaw

[The_Vigilante]

Hope your idea doesn't get nixed by the teacher/administration of the school since it deals with "guns." Might give the wrong idea to the little kiddies!!!

[Graham Smith]

Mix fun with learning. Put numbers and letters on the targets and have the kiddies shoot the numbers in order and shoot the letters to spell a word.

"At the buzzer, shoot the numbered targets from high to low, reload and shoot the lettered targets to spell 'CAT'".

This post has been edited by Graham Smith: 10 January 2009 - 06:08 AM

[Kaizer]

Just an idea... make sure the targets are big enough. Kids will lose interest fast if they can't hit most of the time though.

[Flexmoney]

Kaizer, on Jan 10 2009, 10:07 AM, said:

Just an idea... make sure the targets are big enough. Kids will lose interest fast if they can't hit most of the time though.

Sounds like the real game with us "big kids". Ha.

[maineshootah]

Graham Smith, on Jan 10 2009, 08:07 AM, said:

Mix fun with learning. Put numbers and letters on the targets and have the kiddies shoot the numbers in order and shoot the letters to spell a word.

"At the buzzer, shoot the numbered targets from high to low, reload and shoot the lettered targets to spell 'CAT'".

As one who works with those who work in this industry, this suggestion holds merit.

Add a math or matching component to the mixture to provide a "learning opportunity". Make the targets a square, circle or triangle.

You could even make it a "team" event, where the team works on one to three problems and "shoots" then answers down.

Incorporate collaboration, problem solving and "reward" (being able to shoot the answers down) you might get buy in from the teacher.

[Kaizer]

Flexmoney, on Jan 10 2009, 11:26 PM, said:

Kaizer, on Jan 10 2009, 10:07 AM, said:

Just an idea... make sure the targets are big enough. Kids will lose interest fast if they can't hit most of the time though.

Sounds like the real game with us "big kids". Ha.

It's the kid in me that's typing...

[esskay]

The_Vigilante, on Jan 10 2009, 04:55 AM, said:

Hope your idea doesn't get nixed by the teacher/administration of the school since it deals with "guns." Might give the wrong idea to the little kiddies!!!

My son tells me that another kid set up a game where you used a nerf gun to shoot plastic cups with pictures of Pokemon on them... What I was thinking of has no implication of living creatures as the targets!!

Living on the left coast, there would be a slight glee in the back of my mind to pulling off a "shooting game" at school! Last year (1st grade), one of the school projects was to make a little picture of a "hero". My son drew a police officer. I took an old CDNN catalog, cut out a picture of a holstered pistol, and he glued it on his drawing. Nobody said anything... I was wondering though, since I've read all sorts of news reports about overzealous school administrators.

Maybe in these low grades they're less sensitive than later on?

[esskay]

maineshootah, on Jan 10 2009, 08:25 AM, said:

Graham Smith, on Jan 10 2009, 08:07 AM, said:

Mix fun with learning. Put numbers and letters on the targets and have the kiddies shoot the numbers in order and shoot the letters to spell a word.

"At the buzzer, shoot the numbered targets from high to low, reload and shoot the lettered targets to spell 'CAT'".

As one who works with those who work in this industry, this suggestion holds merit.

Add a math or matching component to the mixture to provide a "learning opportunity". Make the targets a square, circle or triangle.

You could even make it a "team" event, where the team works on one to three problems and "shoots" then answers down.

Incorporate collaboration, problem solving and "reward" (being able to shoot the answers down) you might get buy in from the teacher.

yes, I was thinking along these lines with my comment about including math problems -- 4x5 = shoot target marked "20". I thought maybe that was too much, but I think you guys have me concluding this would be a good idea to make it more "educational." I think maybe math is a good way to go because it's 2nd grade kids. At that point, spelling problems probably get too complicated since kids know longer, harder words and that's too many targets to put down. For math, I could have single targets for each problem instead. Helps also with the limited magazine capacity of the nerf guns.

Actually, this brings up something for us adults -- I recall in the Magpul Dynamics Carbine course DVDs one of the drills they were running, Chris Costa was calling out targets and sometimes made the students think before shooting. E.g. the targets had numbers and different colors and he might call out "1+4"

[esskay]

Kaizer, on Jan 10 2009, 07:07 AM, said:

Just an idea... make sure the targets are big enough. Kids will lose interest fast if they can't hit most of the time though.

Yes, good point especially since the nerf guns aren't that accurate (nor do they have good sighting mechanisms!). Does anyone have ideas on good ways to construct a target?
* glue cardboard target to a plastic cup (might be too stable and not fall over)
* make the usual "T" shaped cardboard target with the target backed with a perpendicular support (if I make the support small enough maybe it'll fall over easily)

Kids are short, can put the targets on cardboard boxes of varying heights to mix things up too.

For barricade, so I don't have to build framed barricades like at the range, maybe I'll take one of those large folding tables like this:

Put it on its side, and just attach big pieces of cardboard to it that I can cut holes out of (square, triangle, circle)

Any other ideas?

Thanks all!

[esskay]

Was poking around the net and... Wow, I had no idea about Nerf gun enthusiasts and subculture. Organized "nerf wars", nerf gun modding, etc... Guys tear down nerf guns, glue on barrels made from copper piping or PVC, build their own darts, etc.

http://nerfhaven.com/

[Kaizer]

Wat bout constructing a paper plate poppers? It's resettable and should be light enough to be knocked down I guess?

[esskay]

Talked to our teacher today, she didn't bat an eye.

Experimented a bit. Paper plate attached to a paper cup works well enough -- they do sometimes spin instead of falling if you shoot them in the wrong place.

Unfortunately the lame Nerf ball guns that we have are not great (pretty inconsistent, no sights!) -- seems like Nerf dart guns are better; think I'll just shorten the distances.

[Resjudicata]

esskay, on Jan 13 2009, 12:08 AM, said:

Talked to our teacher today, she didn't bat an eye.

Experimented a bit. Paper plate attached to a paper cup works well enough -- they do sometimes spin instead of falling if you shoot them in the wrong place.

Unfortunately the lame Nerf ball guns that we have are not great (pretty inconsistent, no sights!) -- seems like Nerf dart guns are better; think I'll just shorten the distances.

Isn't this a perfect reason to buy some new guns?

Chris

[Genghis]

I wonder if a CED 7000 will pick up the shots from a Nerf gun?

If this gets going, I may have to borrow my daughter's Nerf Vulcan (belt fed, full auto).

[esskay]

Genghis, on Jan 13 2009, 01:39 PM, said:

I wonder if a CED 7000 will pick up the shots from a Nerf gun?

If this gets going, I may have to borrow my daughter's Nerf Vulcan (belt fed, full auto).

LOL, I leave in 30 min to go setup. My wife already thinks I'm crazy, I've pushed this thing beyond where a 2nd grader could have possibly built or come up with himself... the joy of helping kids with their school projects, especially when it coincides with dad's interests! Will see if I can get some good pics of the set up! (quick preview - barricade, shapes, math problems, crawling through a tunnel... hope the kids like it, my son did)

Re: buying guns, I looked in the closet and had forgotten I had bought 4 of these buzzsaw guns (they were on sale at Amazon for $5 each!). So I will have all 4 preloaded on the stage. No loading during the stage needed.

This post has been edited by esskay: 14 January 2009 - 12:18 PM

[Kaizer]

Remember to post some headcam shots for us to see.

Also it would be a good training tool for the kids. "You know why you lost to Tommy boy here? Let me show you something here son... Your transition from question 2 to question 3 takes too much time, although your calculation and shooting is faster than Tommy.

[waktasz]

^^^^ Brilliant.