Backyard Bowling

Backyard Bowling Game

      Thank you, Dr. Lauren at VSU for this post!

In the game of backyard bowling, you will need a backyard bowling set. If you do not have one, you can improvise with your own pins and balls. 

How to make Pins - this is also a creative art project you can do with your friends and family!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IcIrF3Yio4

Equipment - smooth flat surface, a ball (this can be a tennis ball, golf ball, bouncy ball, lacrosse ball, or any ball that will roll), pins (these can be made from empty soda cans, empty bottles, as shown in the YouTube video, or any type of equipment that will fall down when it is hit). 

You will also need to tape out or draw with chalk an out of bounds area. You can use the side of a driveway or grass as well.

Set up:  In a typical bowling game, the pins are set up in a pyramid. However for this game, you can choose to set your pins however you want. 

After your pins are set up, you will need to plan how far back you will be to roll your ball to the pins, usually the length of a driveway is great start. 

Rules:  Players will bowl, roll one ball at a time on the ground, toward the pins, trying to knock down as many pins as possible. A player gets 2 tries in that frame. 

After 2 balls have been rolled, that player will keep track of their knocked down pin count for that frame. Another player will then set up the pins. After the pins are setup again, it is someone else’s time to bowl. 

A real bowling game is 10 frames, however, in backyard bowling you can choose however many frames you want to bowl for that game. 

If a ball is rolled out of bounds, this is considered being rolled in the gutters, and no pins will be awarded for that roll. 

Once a bowling game has ended, reset the pins with more or fewer pins and with different types of balls. You can also move the rolling surface further back or closer to the pins. 

Scoring: You can choose to bowl for fun and not keep track of score at all.

In general, can keep track of how many pins were knocked down per each frame per person.

If you are a math person, you can double the pins knocked down for the first roll and add that to the pins knocked down for the second roll. For example, if a person on the first roll knocked down 5 pins, that person would have 10 points. For that person’s second roll, he or she knocked down 1 pin, then he/she would have 1 point. For that frame, that person would have a score of 11 points. 10 (the first roll doubled) +1 (the 2^nd roll) =11 pins/points.

Have fun and enjoy bowling and making your pins!!!!