Build Your Own Human Foosball Table - Part 1

We set out to build our own human foosball table with an aim of spending less than $200 and dedicating less than 3 hours putting it together.  We achieved both!  Here's what we did:

The Design

We loved the high quality, custom-built designs like this and this, but we didn't have the time or the money to put something similar together.  Still, having the walls enclosing the playing field was a high priority.  Imagine playing real foosball without those walls!  There's so much strategy that comes from playing off the walls.  Plus, we didn't want to chase the ball every time it got kicked out of bounds.  We found that construction fencing seemed to do the trick (like this), so we decided to go with that.  

We opted for a smaller court to promote faster play and to allow players connected to different rods to interact.  Our final design was 35' x 14' with 6 ropes running across the field each 5ft. apart.  Twelve players could play at a time with 6 on each team.  We threaded PVC pipe over the ropes that players held onto allowing them to slide back and forth.  Square hay bales stacked on top of each other held the ropes up on either side.  

Next:  Part 2 :  The Supplies