Our Cornhole boards are complete! After about four days of concentrated woodshop time and a lot of tool demos, each of our students now has a finished Cornhole board that they built with their own hands (students will be paired to make a set). Based on the measured, drafted shop drawings of the boards that we did a few weeks ago (below), we went into the shop and began laying out our sequence. We had donated plywood and lumber from the local Bertie Builders Discount store, ready to go with the plywood cut to a 2′ x 4′ size (1/4 of a standard 4×8 sheet). Our lumber and plywood sequence was listed on the board so that everyone understood what needed to be done first, second, third, etc. Matt also gave an overview of how plywood is made, what makes it stable, and why we’re using it for this project.

As everyone had used the basic tools (table saw, chop saw, etc) for our shop certification project, but we hadn’t yet used certain saws, drills, and the router. We’d be using hand drills and the router for the frame of the boards, so we made sure to do a quick demo on those tools before diving into the cutting sequence.

After learning how to safely use each of the new tools (most important thing: “always keep your eye on the ball!”), we spread out to our stations and started in on the sequence. The first step was to take your long stick lumber and cut it down into six pieces: four of the frame sides, one center brace, and one “extra” piece that we would use to make the small corner brace pieces.

We cut these pieces about 1/2″ longer than they needed to be, so that we could go back in and cut the mitred corners for the frame sides. We decided to build our frame with mitred corners so that the exterior looked as clean as possible.

Second, we took the board top (the 2′x4′ piece of plywood), laid out the center point for the hole, and used the drill bit and a circle saw bit to cut out the 6″ wide opening. Because the circle saw bit has so many teeth and removes so much material, this drilling step often takes a while to get through the whole piece of plywood.

Once the hole was drilled, we could use the router to smooth over the edges of both the hole and the edge of the top. We wanted a nice, rounded corner so that it wasn’t sharp on your hands, and so that the cornhole bags slide nicely into the hole. For this, we used a 1/4″ roundover bit. The router can be tough because it has so much torque and is tough to control, so we helped some students with their first round, making sure that they kept a tight grip on the handles, put the cord over their shoulders, an always kept the router steady along the edge. Once the edges had been rounded, we used the sander to smooth the top of the boards to a silky finish (we’ll be finishing and painting the tops with our awesome graphic designs next week).

Once our frame pieces had been cut and mitred to size, we used the biscuit joiner to add our biscuit-sized holes to the ends of each of the frame pieces. A biscuit joint uses a small piece of wood that bridges the two pieces together using glue. It’s a very stable joint, and we also used a brad gun to hold it in place as the glue dried.

Once the biscuits were glued in place and our frame squared up, we fired some brads into the corners to stabilize it, and let the glue dry. Once dry, we began laying out the frame and top, getting ready to attach the two. We needed to be sure that the frame was square, so we used an old (easy technique): measure the diagonals and make sure they are equal, which implies that the frame is totally square, not skewed to one side or another.

Once laid out and square, we glued down the top and used the brad gun to secure the two together. At this point, the cornhole boards were starting to look like cornhole boards! And for the most part, most students’ boards were square, with the tops lining up nicely with the frames.

To stabilize the board even more, we also added a center strut (from our fifth piece of lumber), which would span the width of the board and keep it from shearing to once side or the other.

At this point, we were ready to add our legs, which would require some geometry to ensure that the boards sat at a specific angle with the back end exactly 12″ off the ground. This meant a 59 degree angle cut for the legs, and a perfectly placed hole where it would attach to the frame. We would find out later that some students’ holes or angles were a bit off and would need adjustment.

Once the legs were cut and attached, we were 95% done! For even more stability, we added corner braces to the underside of the boards, and also discovered that due to some leg errors and imprecise measurements, we needed to add a shim to the back side of the frame in order to have legs that rested flush against the ground (note: this was actually intentional on our part, as we wanted students to have to reason through why their legs weren’t quite right, and fix it).

A little extra hand sanding, shimmying here and there, adjustments of the legs, and voila! Each student has now successfully built their cornhole board and we are ready to move on to the graphics. The sets will go together nicely, and based on the quality of the construction, we’re so proud of all our students! While this first design/build project is fairly prescribed, it is building important technical skills that will ensure solid construction and precise execution when we get into bigger projects like the chicken coops.

Overall, this was a great assignment. We’ve been calling this first project “bootcamp” because it really is about building a foundation and a discipline around design and construction work. The goal here was not to redesign the cornhole board, but to understand how it is laid out, what the precise sequence is for making it, the materials needed and why, and the focused execution of construction. With an object like a cornhole board, if you’re off by 1/8″, your whole board might be skewed. It was so important for students to focus on the precision of their actions, and the boards showed that precision. Now that we have a foundation of skills in the woodshop (we know “how” to use the tools), we can start to get creative about what we’re making and how we might use the tools to prototype, test, and produce the best solutions. Everything is about problem solving, and this was a great place to start! Plus, every student came out of this process with a physical record of their work: an object whose construction you can’t shortcut, and a game that everyone loves!

Check out Cameron and Wilbert’s boards below in their post-construction interviews (they hadn’t attached their legs just yet….)

And… everyone hard at work! This is the kind of work ethic we like to see…