<< [BACK TO MAZE STUFF]

Someone emailed me on what it took to actually put the maze together.  This section is a cut and paste of my email response.

This maze is made of 1/2" PVC pipe and connectors.  The cross connectors are the best/most useful but the most expensive.  Don't waste your money buying elbows.  Tee's do the exact same thing and are more versatile.

There's usually two kinds of PVCs; sch40 and another kind.  One is stiffer and costs about 20-40 Cents more.  If you are doing a lot of close hallways you don't need to worry about getting the stiffer pvc.  All the frames will hold itself together.  You'll need to figure out how big the setup needs to be.  Our maze hallways were 3' wide and we made a bigger room for the poka-dot-room.  We had to run to home depot a few times.  The structure was 8 feet tall.

Here's what we did:

• Buy a bunch of 1/2" pvc. (should be around 60 cents per 10' from home depot)
• We put our maze on grass and used rebar to put into the ground then slid the pvc over it. If you're not doing this on grass you're on your own on how to get it to stay up.
• Buy about 10 crosses ($1.00ea.)
• 40 couplers (2 bags of 10 for $1.00ea)
• 20 tee's (2 bags of 10 for $1.50ea)
• A pvc cutter ($15.00 but WELL worth it)
• Cut 10' PVC into two 3' pieces and two 2' pieces
• Cut a 3' piece into a bunch of 2" pieces (this is how you connect tee's to other tee and crosses)
• Build like a tinker toy set

The walls are made of black painter's sheeting. About 40 bucks for 2000 sq feet. The roll is usually 10' high and about 200' long. Though, that's dependant on the mil (thickness). You want to go with a higher mil (about 6). The thin stuff is just too thin.

Below are some examples of how stuff connects.