PVC Pipe Building Set

This is something I heard about over eight months ago and I finally got to give this to Builder Boy as his birthday present! It's a bunch of 1/2 in PVC pipe cut into measured lengths and a bunch of different fittings to build contraptions, structures, whatever he wants. Right now he's trying to build super sized, complicated version of the mini marshmallow shooters we made yesterday. Daddy is the only one who has strong enough breath to make it work, but it's pretty cool.
 
I spent about $50 on this (family members chipped in to pay for it,) but you could probably buy less to start with and then add on later. The 1/2 in pipe was only $1.65/10 feet. I got 110 feet for $18.15. The rest went to a $13 ratchet pipe cutter (which was completely worth it and I wouldn't recommend doing this without one) and the fittings. Three types of the fittings could be about in packages of 10 or 25 for less money per piece than you would pay for each one individually. But some of the other fittings had to be bought individually; some for $0.36/each, some for $0.80 each.

Here's how I cut the pipes:

5 ft / 5 ft
5 ft  / 5 ft
4 ft / 4 ft / 2 ft
4 ft / 4 ft / 2 ft
3 ft / 3 ft / 3 ft / 1ft
3 ft / 3 ft / 3 ft / 1ft
2 ft / 2 ft / 2 ft/ 2 ft / 2 ft
2 ft / 2 ft / 2 ft / 2 ft / 2 ft
1 ft X 10

That gave us (4) 5 ft long pipes, (4) 4 ft long pipes, (6) 3 ft long pipes, (12) 2 ft long pipes, and (12) 1 ft long pipes. I left 2 pipes uncut to see what he would need after he started building. He ended up using the short pieces from the mini marshmallow shooters, so I'll cut one of the leftover pipes into 3 in and 6 in pieces.

I got 2 plastic shoe-boxes at the dollar store to keep the fittings in and I got a tall plastic garbage can to hold the pipes in.

Builder Boy loved this present immediately, and it's all he's played with since he got it yesterday. As soon as spring comes this will become an outside toy. But until then it's a way to bribe him to clean up all his other toys so that he has room to make his structures.

Added later: here is a video of a double mini marshmallow shooter that Builder Boy built, powered by Daddy.

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