Curbly

All I can think of is my aching toes when that monstrosity tips over on someone's bedroom-slippered toes. 

i'm using this (and attributing its origin) with my architecture studio as an exercise in understanding how they respond when given a task, materials but not organisational direction - then we can sit on the results and talk about what we learned about leadership, curiosity, team work - on my pricing - under $5 a stool :)

Clint - Okay. Well, you don't need an 8 foot dowel, you need a 4 foot dowel, which you can find anywhere from $2-$4, depending on where you get it. So, if concrete and a bucket is $7 (which you will likely use for other projects after this), you're still only looking at $9-$11 total -- plus $3 if you're adding copper caps, which are completely optional. And, hey, if you already have a bucket and concrete leftover from some other project, it might only cost you the price of the dowel, which is less than $5. Point is, it's a cheap project that looks pretty cool and just about anyone can pull off.

The point is still that 5 dollar stool is not true.  I mean it's not like someone wants enough mini stools to get this project down to 5 dollars per unit.  Also you're failing to realize that concrete is cheap and buckets are cheap.  If you subtract the 7 bucks for the bag of concrete and the bucket, you're still left with making a stool out of a 13 dollar 8' dowel and three bucks worth of copper fittings per unit.  

"MathWiz" -- I imagine that Ben at HomeMade Modern is pricing this per stool. You certainly won't be using the entire bag of concrete for one stool, nor will you be using the bucket a single time.

umm....if i went to Home Depot and added up the parts list (concrete, bucket, dowel, copper caps) it comes up to $18.97, and that's not including tax. So,not exactly a $5 project.

good idea