Ideas for Making a Shooting Game out of Cardboard! A Collection of Simple, Exciting Ideas for Kids and Adults
A shooting game that both kids and adults can enjoy! There’s even a way to make a festival-style shooting game you can play at home.
With cardboard, you can easily create realistic targets that flip down, spin around, or slide along.
Plus, the materials are all things you likely already have at home.
Try making your own original targets that are fun to look at! In this article, we’ll introduce an easy method for anyone to try making a shooting game.
Enjoy a handmade shooting game full of warmth with your family and friends.
Shooting game ideas made with cardboard! A collection of easy, exciting ideas for kids and adults (1–10)
a target that falls with a clatter
Let’s try making a target that falls over with a thud when it’s hit.
You might think the falling mechanism makes it hard to build, but it’s surprisingly easy! Cut a rectangle out of cardboard, hollow out the center, and fold it to make the base.
Then connect the cut-out piece to the base with a toothpick, and attach the target piece to finish.
If you add a weight to the base, only the target will tip over when struck, making it a visually engaging target.
Target made of cardboard
Let’s make something simple with items you have at home! Here are ideas for making targets out of cardboard.
Many people may think making a target is difficult, but with this idea, you can create one using simple steps! You’ll need cardboard, a utility knife or scissors, masking tape or vinyl tape, and a pen.
After cutting the cardboard into circles, triangles, or squares, cover the cut edges with masking or vinyl tape.
Write the points with a pen, and you’re done! When you actually play, you’ll find it’s surprisingly challenging and a lot of fun.
a target that spins around and around
How about a target that spins when a bullet hits it? It’s surprisingly easy to make: glue a short piece of straw to the back of the target piece, thread a bamboo skewer through it, and then attach the skewer to the frame part.
If you add a bit of weight to the bottom of the target piece, it will spin nicely when struck.
You’ll really feel the impact of the shot, making it a lot of fun to play with.
You can customize the designs on the front and back of the target to your liking, and it’s also great to have young children draw them!
Strikeout-style
Speaking of targets, a strikeout-style setup really gets you excited, right? It’s so fun to call out, “I’m aiming for number X!” and then shoot—hitting the exact numbered target you declared feels amazing.
To make it, build a frame out of cardboard and cut out the target openings, making each target slightly smaller than the frame openings.
Also, think about how to secure the targets so they don’t fall over on their own before a shot actually hits them.
Adjust how easily the targets pop out depending on what you’ll be shooting with—like a rubber-band gun or a cork gun—to make the game even more enjoyable.
Target for a rubber band gun
If you’re looking for a target for a rubber band gun, I recommend the one featured in this video.
It’s a round target like those used for darts or archery, with higher scores toward the center.
What’s unique is that toothpicks are stuck all over the target.
The rule is that you score based on the area where the rubber band gets caught on a toothpick.
It can’t be used for shooting corks or paper balls, but it adds a ring-toss-like element that makes it more fun.
moving target
For those who want to create an elaborate, high-quality shooting gallery target, this flowing target is highly recommended.
By making parts out of cardboard like a mechanical contraption and assembling them, you can manually create a moving target.
It feels almost like building a plastic model, so it seems fun from the very process of making it.
The part templates are available online, and there are videos showing how to build it, so it should be easy to try.
I think it’s also perfect for an elementary school summer craft project!
Easily made target
Here’s the simplest and easiest target you can make.
Using cardboard, cut out two parts: the target piece and the leg piece.
Make a slit in each and simply slot them together to finish.
You can change the shape and size of the target as you like, and you can also customize it by drawing illustrations or attaching folded-paper ogres or other decorations.
You can adjust how easily it falls over by changing the size of the leg piece, so use that to tweak the difficulty.
You could also write numbers on the targets to assign points, making the harder-to-knock-down targets worth more points—this will increase the game-like feel and make it more fun.
Target shooting game with an air cannon
Fun for kids and adults alike! This is a shooting game you can enjoy indoors.
Punch a hole in an empty snack box, tie off a balloon’s mouth, and cut off the tip.
Stretch the cut balloon over the hole in the box, then put the original lid back on and secure it with vinyl tape.
Decorate the outside with origami paper, and your air cannon is complete! For targets, you can cut cardboard into any shapes you like and start playing right away, just like a shooting gallery.
It’s easy fun for both kids and adults, so try customizing it for different events and enjoy!
Motorized moving target
This idea is to make a moving target move automatically.
First, we’ll manually build a moving target using publicly available templates and how-to videos online, and then add a motor to it.
We’ll use commercially available parts for the motor and the pulleys that transmit power to the target.
The video uses dry-cell batteries, but we could experiment with whether it can run on a fruit battery or a binchotan charcoal battery, which could make it a great summer science project.
Of course, it also looks like it would be plenty of fun to use as a target for a shooting game!
a target that aims for the mouth
If you’re going to play a shooting game with small children, how about a playful target like this? Use cardboard to create a character with a wide-open mouth, and aim your shots at the mouth.
If you want an easy version, make it flat; if you want a more polished result, build it in 3D.
You could choose a character you’d want to “defeat,” like an ogre or a monster, or make a gluttonous character and pretend the pellets are food—that’s a fun idea too.