A Less Wasteful Basketball Hoop

A Less Wasteful Basketball Hoop

By, Arson O. & Remi M. 6C


For our project, we made a basketball hoop using less plastic than a normal hoop. Our inspiration for this project was the fact that basketball hoops use a lot of plastic, the rim, stem, and backboard are either made of or coated in plastic, and we both like basketball so it all worked out.

   The biggest challenge for us was the height of the hoop. We wanted to make the hoop actual size but then we ran into the problem that the hoop would be too top heavy. We were pretty disappointed that we couldn’t make the hoop real size but it still worked out. We also ran into the challenge that we couldn’t find a tire for the rim of our hoop. Our original idea was to have a tire for the rim and a base made of plywood with a tire around the stem, then drill screws into the stem and put weights in the tire, but we realized two screws was not enough to hold up at least 30 pounds of wood and weights, also a flat base wouldn’t keep the stem sturdy and once a ball hit the backboard the stem would snap off.

Some of our goals during this project was to not use any money throughout this entire project, all the wood we used was provided by the school, so was the paint, and the bucket was found here at school as well. Our other goal was to raise awareness that you can make basketball hoops without plastic, even though ours wasn’t the right height it’s still possible to make a real sized hoop, we just couldn’t do it because of the time that was given. Our last goal was to please kids and show them you can make fun things out of junk or trash, and it helps the environment.

We learned how to make a sturdy base and how weight in different places can really affect the outcome
If we had more time to work on our project, we would have made a custom basketball, for example, we could have made it out of plastic bags, tape, rubber, and other materials. We would also make a sturdier base and make it real sized everything, real sized rim, and real sized height. If you plan to make your homemade basketball hoop then here are some tips:

• Triple check your cuts for your wood
• Do test shots
• Double screw everything
• Make pilot holes
• If its not sturdy enough then put sand bags down
• HAVE FUN!!

If you want to add additional things to your hoop try this link