DIY toy guide

Cardboard Ball Track

A circular chase circuit built into a box lid

A ball trapped in a circular channel inside a box lid can be batted but never captured, which is exactly the frustration that keeps a cat coming back — the commercial version of this toy sells in the millions.

Difficulty
Easy
Time
30 minutes
Cost
Free

🧺 You will need

  • A shallow cardboard box lid, around 40cm square
  • A second sheet of cardboard for the inner and outer walls
  • A ping pong ball, or a lightweight jingle ball
  • Non-toxic PVA glue
  • A craft knife and a ruler
  • A pencil and something round to draw around

🔧 How to make it

  1. Draw two concentric circles in the base of the lid, leaving a channel between them about 7cm wide — comfortably wider than the ball so it rolls freely.
  2. Cut two long strips of cardboard about 5cm tall to form the inner and outer walls of the channel.
  3. Score one edge of each strip every centimetre or so, which lets the cardboard curve smoothly instead of kinking.
  4. Glue the scored strips upright along your pencil lines, forming a circular trench, and hold them with pegs until dry.
  5. Cut paw-sized openings in the outer wall at three or four points around the circuit, big enough for a paw but far too small for the ball to escape.
  6. Drop the ball into the channel and check it rolls the whole way round without catching on a glue ridge.
  7. Leave it to dry completely before letting the cat near it, then set it down and roll the ball once to start things off.

💡 Tips

The openings are what make this work — a cat that can see and touch the ball but never remove it will keep returning to the track for weeks, whereas a fully enclosed channel gets ignored. Two balls in the circuit is more interesting than one. If your cat loses interest, swap the ping pong ball for one with a bell, or drop a few pieces of kibble into the channel so the track occasionally pays out. A track placed against a wall gets less use than one in open floor where the cat can work at it from all sides.

Safety: Sand or fold down any cut edges so nothing is sharp, and make sure the paw openings are genuinely too small to trap a leg — a hole a cat can push a paw through but not withdraw it from is the one hazard in this design, so test each opening with your own finger. Use a ball too large to swallow and check it regularly for cracks, replacing it as soon as it splits. Supervise cats that chew cardboard rather than bat at it.

📝 Notes

About half an hour of work for a toy that reliably outlasts most bought ones, and free if you have a box and a stray ping pong ball. When the cardboard eventually goes soft, the design is quick enough to rebuild that it hardly matters.

A ball that can be touched but never caught keeps the chase sequence unresolved
A ball that can be touched but never caught keeps the chase sequence unresolved

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