Building Mazes for a Science Project
- 1). Do preliminary tests to determine how complicated your experiment maze should be. Create makeshift, temporary mazes using objects like furniture or toys (such as Lego™ bricks). Start with a maze as simple as possible (just one possible “wrong” turn) and give your test subject a run through, then build in complexity. Make the most complicated maze that the subject can still solve. Bear in mind that you may wish to excuse the maze-building specimen from being a test subject in the final experiment if you think his learning during the maze design will affect the results. Pay attention to the height of the walls and how high they must be to keep your subject from climbing or looking over them.
- 2). Create a line drawing of your final test maze to use as a pattern for your final maze. If you're using the same test subject from the maze design, sketch a new maze with similar difficulty (i.e., comparable size and number of twists and dead ends). Otherwise, draw an aerial line sketch of the test maze or take an aerial photo, then trace it.
- 3). Print the maze on a large sheet of paper. Scan the maze sketch and re-size it in a computer image editing program so that it will print at the size you want. Print the image at actual size by printing it on multiple sheets of standard-sized paper (print without margins).
- 4). Mount the paper maze on plywood. Coat the plywood surface with a mixture of one part wood glue and one part water. Lay the paper sheets down, arranging them to make the maze design. Let dry.
- 5). Cut maze walls from foam. Make rectangular strips as tall as the height you recorded during Step 1, and as long as you can with the foam you're working with.
- 6). Glue the maze walls to the lines of the line drawing maze. Spread tacky craft glue along the lines on the paper, then press the edge of a foam wall firmly into the glue. Trim the walls to fit using a craft knife. Attach pieces of wall to other pieces, as needed, by first gluing the shorter pieces in place, then sealing over the cracks with strips of duct tape.