My Passions Project – Basket Cards🎯🏀
Have you ever wanted to mix the fun of basketball with the strategy of a card game and the challenge of building your own launcher? That’s exactly what I tried to do with my passion project—Basket Cards.
I chose this project because I’ve always loved both hands-on building and creative games. The idea of making something interactive, where players shoot a small ball into a basket using a custom-made launcher, seemed both fun and challenging. I wanted to create a mini game that felt like a mix of carnival skill, competition, and creativity.
The Build Journey 🛠️
Once I had my idea, I started with a scaled down hoop to see if the 3d printer could print it properly. I used the 3d printer to make the launcher and it worked great. For the actual hoop at the small scale, it actually printed quite well.
Things changed when I scaled up the project. When I made basket bigger, the force and angles didn’t work the same way. The ball would overshoot or miss completely, and the hoop was way too small. At first, it felt like the project was failing.
Instead of giving up, I went back and modified the design—I adjusted the angle of launch, and added supports to make the hoop while also making the overall board bigger. Each change brought me closer to a working model. Eventually I managed to make it so that it was actually possible to make the ball into the hoop and I felt like I had succeed.
Final Result & Reflection 🎉
In the end, my final hoop worked much better! It was far from perfect, but the ball could successfully make it into the basket if you aimed correctly. I added card game elements that let players get a strike from missing, which made it even more fun.
Through this experience, I learned a lot about trial and error, especially how something that works on a small scale might not work when you build it bigger. I also learned about physics—like angles, force, and tension—without even realizing it at first.
Next time, I would probably test scaling earlier and think of ways to make the game hard from the beginning. But overall, I’m proud of what I made and how much I improved the idea along the way.