Keeping Entertained in a Low-Tech Environment, Part II

(This post was dictated by Oscar.)

We came up with a new game, called "Bottle Basketball." We took a paper bag and cut open both ends so that you can throw the cap of a bottle through it.

We have dozens of bottles now, having gotten about a week's worth since the last entry. In my room, we also have a dresser. It doesn't have any drawers but it's a simple frame made of wooden logs meshed with thin coconut fibre ropes. The dresser works like a kind of bookshelf made out of webbing. We also have a lot of clothespins because we don't have a dryer and hang all our laundry out to dry.

To play the game, we attached the paper bag to a dresser by taking a belt and attaching it to the dresser. Then we clipped the bag onto the belt with clothespins. We took the bottle caps off all of our drumming water bottles to use as basketballs.

After we played the game for a while, we decided to improve it. We had so many bottles, we cut three in half to use for special materials for the hoop. We cut strips and clipped them on to the top of the hoop with clothespins. The strips make the basket wider and easier to score with (it was too tough before). We cut another bottle in half to make a container to store our bottlecaps. We attached a sheet to the dresser under the basket, so that the bottle caps go through the hoop and then roll back to you to be thrown again. We also made a backboard with a wall of bottles we stuck inbetween the bars on our dresser compartments. And we wove together the water bottle labels into mats, which we attached to two broom handles; that way if we miss a shot, the bottlecap bounces off the side net and rolls down into the sheet, along with all the other bottlecaps.

The basketball game still has some things that could be improved, but we have a year to do it!

If you want to try this game, here's what you need:

• empty water bottles for the backstop (we recommend at least 12, but you can use as many as you want)
• 1 sheet, about 4' x 5'
• 16 bottle labels (if you have cut-up strips of printer paper, that would work, too)
• 2 long poles (broom handles are best
• 1 paper bag (the size of a lunch bag is good, but if it's too hard to make a basket with that size basket, a grocery bag would work)
• something thin, curved, and slightly flexible to hold the rim wide open (we recommend inch-wide strips of cut-up water bottle)
• 1 belt to attach the basket
• water bottle lids for basketballs (24 is a good number)
• approximately 12 clothespins

Tools:

• scissors for cutting the bottles