project: cubicle fun

if you've ever had a computer related job, then chances are you know all about the dreaded cubicle. when your supervisors aren't playing musical-cubicles making you move from one spot to another (even if it's just to the next cube over) you are constantly trying to find ways to kill time in order to keep your sanity. a lot of geeks like to have nerf gun wars, master the art of making paper airplanes, or even pretend to use their headsets & computers to land aircraft all day. perhaps you're more fidgety/crafty and prefer building circuit-board key chains, making cat5 (category 5 utp [unshielded twisted pair] cable) bracelets, or covering your co-worker's desk in foil or post-it notes. you discover a lot of things in boredom, such as removing the ball from your mouse and peeling off the rubber casing results in a steel musket-ball that can mysteriously make you feel all powerful like magneto from the x-men movies. whatever the case, i'd like to share with you one of my favorite cubicle projects. keep in mind that i got in a lot of trouble for making these little suckers back in grade school; they can be dangerous.

mini-basketball hoops are so boring; instead, we're going to make a mini archery set. the sound-proofing fabric that cubicles are made out of is almost perfect for our little arrows to stick. the materials needed are as follows:

• a piece of paper

• standard bic round stic ink pen (or similar)

• a rubber band

• a push-pin or thumb-tack

• scissors (optional)

1. to begin, draw a shooting target on your piece of paper (or just use someone's picture if you prefer)

2. next, disassemble the pen into 4 main pieces (this can be a little tricky), and use the push-pin to pierce a centered hole in both sides of the cylinder shaped body of the pen.

3. carefully attempt to widen the holes (use scissors if you need to) and drill them wide enough so that you can stick the "head" of the pen through it; be careful not to break the sides or make the hole too big.

4. ahh, it's all starting to come together now isn't it? tighten the rubber band around the pen while fastening it into place with the pen cap. you can use the open end of the pen to store extra ammunition.

last but not least, hang up your target with the push-pin and prepare to fire!

before shooting, you might want to take into consideration that these things can reach extremely high speeds and do have a tendency to ricochet. don't shoot your eye out, kid… now, you see the real reason why they say "the pen is mightier than the sword." don't go breaking all of your pens yet though, i have one other nifty pen trick coming up (even more dangerous than this one).