Crafts | Shooter Foosball Table

For my Bestie's 21st birthday back in college, I made her a flower bouquet of shooters in a margarita glass with a bunch of fun hangover cure items in the back. I've been wanting to create another fun shooter craft for a while now, and finally got the opportunity! This was made for my best friend's younger brother and it turned out super fun! 

The Details: 

• Price: ~ $120 (The shooters were about $60, cheaper if cheaper shooters are used!)  
• Time: ~ 2 days or 30 hours (a lot of TV and movies) 

1. Gather Materials: 

• 16 Shooters 
• 6 Dowels Size 
• 2 Black Mounting Boards 32" X 40" 
• Green Vinyl (Cricut removable green 2 rolls) 
• White Vinyl (2 sheets Oracal 651)   
• Black Vinyl (Cricut removable black 2 rolls) 
• Duct Tape 
• Velcro Squares 
• Black leather waist belt (From goodwill) 
• Jumbo Popsicle sticks 
• Yellow Foam Sheet 
• Black Spray Paint

2. Prep Materials 

    First go ahead and spray paint all 6 dowels and 9 popsicle sticks black. 

   Then cut your platform. The bottom platform is going to be 32" X 20". You're going to cover the entire platform with the green vinyl, laying it down exactly at the middle long ways will give you 2 inches to pull around and stick to the bottom. 

3. Create Structure 

     My table was 7 inches in height or 1 inch taller than my tallest shooter. For the goal ends the goal was 5" X 3", right in the center. For the dowel ends here is how to calculate where your holes should be: 

1. Height of holes: 0.5 cm + radius of thickest shooter bottom + highest spot you can stick velcro on your shortest shooter. EX: My thickest shooter at the bottom was the patron bottle. Radius ~ 1 inch. My shortest shooter bottle was the Crown Royal, height ~ 1.75 inch. 
2. Distance between holes: For this you'll have to lay out 6 of your tallest shooters in a line, space them evenly, and then mark the middle of each. *Remember the layout of the shooters, you need to make sure these exact bottles are stuck on each of the dowels that will lay where they are now!* 
3. Mirror your walls: Make sure that your holes are mirrored for the opposing wall! 
4. Ball Entry holes: Create 2 large holes 1 inch from the top, right in the middle to insert the playing balls. These can be 1.75 inch in diameter. 
5. Hole size: I honestly just traced the lid of a shooter for this, The lid was larger than my dowel size and thats all that mattered. 
   
   
   
   

4. Build your stadium

    I am loyal to my glue gun through and through. I used glue gun across to stick on the walls, and then reinforced all joints with duct tape. It worked. Feel free to use your choice of glue. 

5. Design your stadium 

   This really just requires the field lines. Mine were a quarter inch thick. Cut with vinyl with my cricut. No cricut, no problem, very simple cuts by hand. 

1. Goal Lines: width is obviously at 5" and depth into the field is where ever the first or Goalie dowel is.
2. Outer Goal Lines: width is 2.5" out both ways from the first, depth into the field is in between the first dowel and the second. 
3. Semi circle at goal: I honestly cut out a full circle, placed at the depth of the second dowel and then cut when it hit the lines of the square. 
4. Middle: Diameter of circle is distance between middle two dowels and then just straight lines right in the middle down to the walls. 
   

6. Cover your stadium (OPTIONAL) 

  So this really is for aesthetic. I was not about to gift something where you could see uneven cuts in the poster board or that duct tape. So I simply just covered the entire stadium with black vinyl. By doing so, I was also able to reinforce the holes with some covering. You're welcome to decorate your stadium however you like. 

7. Dowel Placement 

    So I actually cut my dowels down by 5", making them a total length of 31". This measurement worked well, I would say you can cut no inches, or less than 5" off your dowels but not more! Go ahead and stick your dowels through each hole. Make sure you mark which dowels belong to which player! Wrap each dead end of the dowel with a cut up piece of belt. I glued the belt, then wrapped with duct tape, and then again with black vinyl. The belt provided the thickness and sturdiness I needed to keep the dowel from slipping out, you're welcome to use whatever material you please. 

The handles side I was able to glue Yellow foam sheet 3" width wrapped around twice. This created a nice cushion to play but also kept the dowel from being pulled in.

8. Alcohol formation

   So here's where we create a layout of our players. Some shooters are plastic, others glass. Some short, some tall. Some thin, some thick. Here is how my thinking played out: 

1. Grey Goose and Absinthe are both very similar, super skinny and both glass bottles. These made for great goalies. 
2. Remember your tall bottles used for spacing the dowels? Each one of those has to go on its corresponding dowel. 
3. Glass bottles should be evenly distributed across the board, both vertically and horizontally. 
4. I also tried to make sure each player had odd shaped bottles placed in the same locations, like Disarrono and Jagger or Patron and Crown. 
5. Field: *Arrow indicates which way the shooter is facing. 

1 bottle > - < 3 bottles - 4 bottles >  - < 4 bottles - 3 bottles > - < 1 bottle 

9. Shooter Prep
    Add a velcro square to each shooter.  For the ones with a smaller body, my squares went at the height of the dowel, so void the 1 inch the shooter will be off the ground and for me the height of velcro went around 1.5 inch from the bottom of the bottle. For the higher bottles I didn't worry about this measurement, and put multiple velcro squares. Some glass bottles may also require extra velcro squares. 

Go ahead and cut your popsicle sticks so they are the same height as the shooters. My popsicle sticks were long enough for 2 shooters. Be sure the place the velcro square the exact same height from the bottom on the popsicle stick. ** the straight edge of all the popsicle sticks was the bottom for me.

 10. Dowel Prep - GOALIE

     For each dowel measure how far high it is from the field, minus whatever your measurement was for the height of each shooter, mine was 1 inch. Mark that point on your dowel. EX: Dowel height = 2.55inch , shooter height from field = 1 inch, marking = 2.55 - 1 = 1.55 inch. For the goalie you want to make sure he's going to cover the entire goal when moved back and forth. Move your goalie dowel all the way towards you (handle side is fully to you), mark with pencil on the dowel where the outer line of the goal nearest you is, move that dowel all the way in and make sure that marking goes all the way to the other side of the field. If not, mark again a littler inward, if too far the other side, mark a bit outward. Continue until your marking is stopped at the same spot when dowel has reached farthest point on both sides of field. REMEMBER: Goalies face inward!

Glue the popsicle stick to your final marking. Reinforce with either black vinyl or a piece of the leather belt.

** I found the leather belt was helpful for the glass bottles, heavier bottles. But the vinyl worked well for the plastic bottles, lighter bottles **

**If you feel the belt is not properly sticking, wrap the belt with the popsicle stick around the edges with vinyl. Will keep both sides down and reinforce glue, see Patron bottle or Disarrono bottle in pics below. **

 

11. Dowel Prep - Players 
     For the players facing the goalies, there are three bottles. Find the center of dowel, place one there, and the other two at the ends of goal lines. When moved back and forth they should cover most of the playing field.

For the players facing the center line, there are four bottles. Move the dowel all the way out towards you (Handle side). Place one bottle at the edge handle side. Move the dowel fully away from you (Stud side is fully out). Place a bottle at the edge stub side. Evenly space the middle area for the other bottles. This line covers the entire field horizontally.

12. Play time! 
   Stick your players on and play! Any bottles that looked as though they may fall were reinforced with extra velcro at this point. I bought the ping pong ball set from walmart.

Game Play Ideas: 

* Every time a player scores, loser has to drink up a player, they end up losing weighted players as the game goes.

* Players can be filled up with water and stuck back on if you want 

* Velcro squares are super cheap, you can always restock the shooters 

* You could've used the same type of shooter or type of bottle for each team and therefore avoid mixing alcohol types. 

Hope you or your recipient enjoy this craft as much as mine did!! Def send me pics if you make it! 

XOXO, 

A