Want to impress your friends and amaze your enemies? This magical magnet maze is not only super fun, but a great opportunity to express your creativity. It’s part-puzzle, part-toy, and all do-it-yourself!
To create this fun magnetic DIY, you’ll first need to gather a few supplies:
- A sturdy paper plate
- A dowel rod
- Two small disc magnets
- Cardstock (or a spare paper plate)
- Scissors
- Glue gun and glue
- A marker
- Optional: Compass
- Optional: Colored markers or colored pencils
To create this DIY maze, first create a maze on a paper plate. If you’d like to use a compass to create a circular maze, you can! Other shapes and styles of maze work just as well. If you’d like to use a template or see some examples, visit this blog to learn more about designing a maze.
You might consider making mazes in several difficulty levels, or including different shapes. This provides some added difficulty to the game down the road. In general, you should ensure that each “layer” of the maze connects to the next, and that there are some barriers throughout the maze.
Next, create a character shape that fits within the lines of your maze. For example, you might consider creating a bunny character, and then drawing carrots in the middle of the maze. Consider other fun pairings: A mouse and some cheese, a bee and a flower - the sky’s the limit!
Draw the character shape on cardstock and color it if desired, then cut it out. Use your glue gun to glue the character shape to one of your two circular magnets.
Finally, you’ll create a method to navigate the maze. Use your glue gun to glue a second small circular magnet to a dowel rod.
While you wait for your glue to dry, consider decorating your maze! You can add fun thematic shapes or elements to the background of your maze.
Once everything is dry, it’s time to navigate the maze. Place the character shape magnet-side-down on the edge of the maze. Place your dowel underneath the plate, aligning with the character. Using the dowel, see if you can solve your maze! Make it even more fun by having a maze race with your friends, or seeing who can create the most challenging game.
