HOMEBREW
My Adventure Tower
By Tom Heck
■ We call it the Adventure Tower, and it’s the
centerpiece of outdoor play for my two kids (ages 6
and 10) and all their friends. I designed and built the
basic structure five years ago and have been adding
(and sometimes subtracting) new play elements
ever since. I treat it like my own giant Tinkertoy set,
and have just as much fun building it as my kids
have playing on it.
In the beginning, my goal was to build a big play
structure that was rock solid (strong enough for
adults to play on), had a small footprint, and maintained high play value as my kids grew.
Triangles are the answer to rock-solid structures,
so the frame of the Adventure Tower is built around a
tripod of 4× 6 treated timbers 16 feet long. The base
rail is made with three 12-foot timbers, and the deck
uses three 8-foot timbers. The metal brackets are
the only non-off-the-shelf items: an engineer friend
designed the bracket that secures the peak of the
tripod and the brackets that attach the horizontal
4× 6 timbers to the tripod.
All the lumber and hardware were purchased at
my local big-box home improvement store. The fun
add-ons — the slide, rings, swing, driver’s wheel,
telescope, etc. — were purchased there as well. The
cargo net came from an army surplus store, and the
rock climbing handholds were purchased on the web.
I eventually built a clubhouse under the Adventure Tower, and the kids love it. The main door was
“secretly” hidden on the climbing wall and I built two
smaller secret escape doors. The kids pleaded for
locks to be added to the doors, and I obliged and was
told it made the clubhouse experience “way better!”
Who would have thought?
I asked my 10-year-old son (a big MAKE magazine
fan) what was most important to share in this article,
and he said, “Tell them how big and strong it is.” Size
and toughness are important to him because he’s
played on the small, wimpy play structures in his
friends’ backyards.
In school last year, my son brought my scale
model of the Adventure Tower in for show and tell,
along with two little action figures. When I picked
him up after school, he jumped in the car and said,
“Everyone wants to come over to our house to play!”
Now that’s cool.
See photos and video of the Adventure Tower
in use at adventuretower.com.
Tom Heck is a daddy, banjoist, team-builder, and maker.
Photograph by Tom Heck
176 Make: Volume 20
