Giant Connect Four

About the game of Connect Four

Connect Four is a two-player connection game in which the players first choose a color and then take turns dropping one colored disc from the top into a seven-column, six-row vertically suspended grid. The pieces fall straight down, occupying the lowest available space within the column. The object of the game is to be the first to form a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line of four of one's own discs.

The Design

To make this giant sized game, I wanted to make sure the ability to eject all the discs is present. To make sure the parts work well together I designed it in Sketchup, here's a view of the design:

The discs are 1/4" thinner than the distance between the plywood sheets, and they are separated by rails running from top to bottom. The "eject" feature is activated by a slider assembly that sits in a groove at the bottom of the game with little posts running across from side to side. When it is in the lock position those posts block the discs. Alternatively they move out of the way allowing the discs to fall down. Here is an illustration of the structure:

The Build

One of the neat things I had to figue out during this build was how to cut out so many discs out of wood. So I built a small jig for my band saw, with a small nail offset from the blade based on the diameter desired. Here's how it works:

After a while I had myself a pile of discs ready to be finished and painted:

I rounded the edges with a router first:

The assembled parts look like this (notice the rails separating the channels for the discs):

Lessons learned

• Initially I made this from 1/4" plywood, but I later adjusted the plans to use 1/2". It is a bit beefier that way, and the final design you see at the top of the article reflects the new materials

• I accidentally left the game out in a strong rainstorm a few days after finishing the build - so it was ruined without any photos of the completed game. Next time I plan to paint all the wood with paint, so in the chance of rain, it wont immediately turn into a soggy sandwich

• This game board is too large for young kids, you might want to scale it down if your munchkins are young