The stick count is the easy part; the offcut is not
Six jumps at three foot uprights, five foot bars and two foot feet come to 42 pieces: twelve uprights of 3 ft, twenty-four foot halves of 1 ft, and six bars of 5 ft. That is 90 ft, which off 10 ft sticks is nine, and packing the pieces properly also gives nine with nothing left over. Add twelve weave poles at 3 ft on a 22 ft base rail and the whole set is 59 pieces and 152 ft, which is sixteen sticks and 8 ft of offcut.
An honest note about that: on jump and weave geometry the packed count and the footage division nearly always agree, because the pieces are short relative to the stick and the small ones fill the gaps the long ones leave. Sweeping this calculator across fourteen thousand combinations of jump count, upright, bar, foot, weave count, pole spacing and stick length did not turn up a single case where the packing needed more sticks than the division. So the stick count is not where the value is.
Where it is: the offcut, and where the offcut sits. The calculator sorts the list longest first and drops each piece into the first stick with room — standard first-fit-decreasing — then reports the total leftover and the single longest piece of it. Eight feet spread across sixteen sticks in inch-and-a-half slivers is scrap. The same eight feet as one 2 ft 8 in leftover and some dust is a spare pole base, and it is worth labelling rather than binning.
The pieces a jump is made of
The model here is the common one: two uprights, each standing on a foot made of two halves joined by a tee, plus the bar. That is 2 uprights, 4 foot halves and 1 bar per jump, with 2 tees at the bases, 6 caps — four on the foot ends and two on the upright tops — and 2 bar cups. Six jumps is 12 tees, 36 caps and 12 cups, and the caps are the line everybody underestimates, because they are the cheapest item and the one that is missing.
Weaves work differently. Poles are single pieces of one length, and if they sit on a base rail rather than individual stakes, that rail is one long piece which almost never fits a stick. Twelve poles at 24 in spacing is eleven gaps, so 22 ft of rail, and out of 10 ft sticks that is three sections of 7 ft 4 in each. The calculator splits the rail evenly rather than cutting two full sticks and a stub, because even sections carry and store better and the joints land somewhere predictable.
What the offcut is worth
| Build | Pieces | Pipe in the pieces | Sticks at 10 ft | Offcut | Longest leftover |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 jumps, 3 ft uprights, 5 ft bar, 2 ft feet | 42 | 90.0 ft | 9 | 0.0 ft | none |
| 6 jumps, 3 ft 6 in uprights, otherwise the same | 42 | 96.0 ft | 10 | 4.0 ft | 4.0 ft |
| 12 weave poles at 3 ft, 24 in spacing, rail base | 17 | 62.0 ft | 7 | 8.0 ft | 2 ft 8 in |
| Both jumps and weaves | 59 | 152.0 ft | 16 | 8.0 ft | 6.0 ft |
Eight feet of offcut on a sixteen stick order is five percent, and the six foot leftover in that last row is a spare bar and a bit. Six inches of difference on one dimension is what moves the first row to the second.
What this page will not do
It will not tell you a height, a bar length, a pole spacing or a wing size, and it will not tell you whether pipe is an appropriate material for anything you are building. Those come from the specification published by the organization you compete under and from whoever makes the equipment you are copying. This is a cut list generator that takes your dimensions and hands back a shopping order.
Where this hands off
Contact obstacles are a different material problem entirely — sheet goods, framing, slats and coating rather than pipe and fittings — and they are on the contact obstacle deck take-off calculator, which also handles what a finished panel weighs to carry. For where the equipment ends up, the ring size calculator turns an obstacle count into a footprint. The same stick-and-fitting arithmetic in its electrical form, with straps and expansion, is the conduit run take-off calculator.
Questions people ask
What size pipe should I use?
Not a question this page answers. Diameter, wall schedule and material are part of the specification for the equipment you are building, and they come from the organization whose rules you compete under or from the maker of the equipment you are copying. The take-off works in lengths and counts, so it is the same arithmetic whatever the pipe turns out to be — enter the weight per foot from the spec sheet if you want the loading weight as well.
Does the packing ever need more sticks than dividing the footage?
On this kind of equipment, almost never, and the page says so rather than pretending otherwise. Sweeping the calculator across fourteen thousand combinations of jump count, upright, bar, foot, weave count, spacing and stick length produced no case where it did, because the 1 ft and 2 ft pieces fill the gaps the 5 ft ones leave. It matters when pieces get long relative to the stick — three 6 ft pieces will not come out of two 10 ft sticks whatever the footage says — so the comparison stays on the page for the builds where it does bite.
Should I buy 10 ft or 20 ft sticks?
Run it both ways and look at the offcut percentage. Longer sticks almost always pack better because there is more room for an awkward piece to find a home, but they also have to fit in the vehicle and they cost more to be wrong about. The calculator will show you the trade in feet, which is more useful than a rule of thumb given that it depends entirely on your dimensions.
Does the fitting count include what I need to glue it together?
No, and deliberately. Cement, primer, screws, pins and anything used to keep a bar cup adjustable are all decisions about how the equipment is assembled, and assembly is specification territory rather than take-off territory. The count covers the tees, caps and cups the geometry implies. Order over on all of them — they are the cheap items and the ones that stop a build at nine on a Saturday.
Can I use this for a tunnel?
Only for the fabric area, and only as a plain cylinder: circumference times length, no seams, no hem, no pockets for hoops or rings. It is a starting figure for a conversation with whoever is sewing it, not a pattern. The pipe side of the calculator has nothing to do with tunnels, which are not built from sticks and fittings.