How We Built A Trampoline

(This section by Timothy.)

When we first realized that we got a trampoline for Christmas, we were like, “Whoa, NO WAY!”

Then we just kinda forgot about it for a while.

A couple days ago, when we finally remembered about it, we said “We gotta put that bad boy together.” 

So we did. (SPOILER ALERT: there was an element of confusion involved)

I heaved the boxes outside onto our grassless, muddy, sinkhole of a yard. We began  to take out all the ingredients: the poles the padding, the safety net (that will get a lot of use), and the mat. We took the metal poles and made a circle. 

“Great, now we have a metal circle.”

We took apart our great metal circle and then made it into a great metal circle with legs.  Next we hooked the the springs on the metal circle and on the mat.  When we had hooked all the springs, tied all the one million and two ties to the spring cover, and tied the safety net to the pole that holds up the safety net, we noticed that we put it on all wrong.

We had to: undo the safety net ties, undo the one million and two spring padding ties, unhook all of the springs, shift the mat 2 feet to the right, rehook all the springs back on (by the time we finished, we were professional hookers), retie  the one million and two spring padding ties, and retie the safety net back on to the safety net holding poles.

Yay.

We got right back to where we were a hour and a half ago. We shoved the safety net holding poles into the safety net holding pole holes, and we got jumping.

The Setback
(This section by Devin.)

At the beginning, we had to decide where to put the entrance. It had to be in a spot without one of the poles sticking up in the middle of it. The poles extending upwards were on every other set of trampoline ‘legs.’

You had to put the entrance in the middle of the poles extending upward -- which I knew had to be done.

I told mom and Timothy that the entrance should be exactly in the middle of the poles, not off to one side, otherwise you might ram into the pole entering or exiting the trampoline.

They said, “Okay, we’ll do that.”

Then when we got to that stage, we put it on wrong because they said it was the right way -- even though I knew it was the wrong way. I told them again that it was wrong way, and again they said, “Yeah, we’ll do that.”

We put it on wrong. Then we piled on top of our mistake. 

We put the springs on. We tied the padding to it. We put foam on the poles. We screwed the poles together. 

  

We were on pretty much the last step when Timothy noticed the net wasn’t aligning right. 

I got really mad at them because they hadn’t listened to me even though they’d said, “Yeah, we’ll do it that way.”  Multiple times.

We had to take off the poles out, untie the padding, take the padding off, unhitch the springs, rotate the trampoline 1 ½ feet to the right, and then put it all back together.

The setback took about 45 minutes to fix.

It was dark when we were done, but we were relieve and happy!

Trampoline Games

One of the games we play on the trampoline is Limp Dodge Ball.  The rules of Limp Dodge Ball are that um…. The rules are basically the rules of Dodgeball except that if you get hit in a limb then that limb goes completely limp.  If you get hit in the chest or head you whole body goes limp, and you are out.

Another game we play is Basketball Dodgeball.  The trampoline that mom got came with a basketball hoop that you connect to the net.  We made a game where there is one ball and you have to put the ball through the hoop 3 times before you can throw the ball at someone.  If you get the ball through the hoop 3 times then you only get 1 throw before you have to get another 3 hoops.  If you have 3 hoops then the rules are like Limp Dodgeball.

Those are the games we play most on the trampoline.