Terraforming Mars: Magnetised playmats

One of the big complaints with Terraforming mars is the player mats and how it's quite easy for the resource production cubes to slide all over the place.

While I find the complaint a little overblown I wanted to see if I could find a solution that doesn't cost as much as the game itself.  In the end I managed to make magnetised mats for less than $5 NZD each.  You can tip these mats upside down and the markers wont move.

Materials and Tools needed

• Colour Laser Printer
• Laminator & A4 Pouches 
• Hot glue gun 
• Drill
• Adhesive backed magnetic sheets ($2.50 Each)
• 8mm Square Beads ($3 for 200) (Aliexpress link)
• Neodymium (Rare Earth) Magnets 5mm Diameter, 3mm thickness (~$10 for 40)
• A4 Printer Paper, Scissors

Steps for Mats

1. Go to the Boardgamegeek listing for Terraforming Mars and in the images section find the image of the player mat (linked here). You are going to need 5 copies printed if you want a mat for each player. The player mat dimensions are 22 x 16 cm so you will need to print the same size. If you do not have software that supports this then you can download Irfanview which is free for personal use and allows you to specify printing dimensions.
2. Cut out and laminate the player mats using your laminator. This is not strictly necessary but will greatly increase the durability of your mats.
3. Trim your laminated mats and stick them to the adhesive backed magnets.  I find the best way is to leave a bit of extra empty lamination plastic around each print out (~0.5cm) then stick your laminated print outs to the magnets and then trim both the magnet and extra lamination plastic away with scissors at the same time to get good edge.

(Variation) You don't have to do the entire mat you can use the same technique to just do the production track part.

I was hoping that I could use the extra magnet material from the adhesive magnet paper but it turns out the magnets are far too weak to be able to attach through a laminated piece of paper so I had to purchase the Neodymium magnets.  They usually come in a disk shape of variable widths and heights.  I recommend you don't get any wider than 5mm and any higher than about 3 or 4mm.  Larger magnets will hold better but I would guess that smaller magnets would hold fine.

You will need a drill bit that is the same width as your magnet but a standard set of drill bits will usually have the size you need.

I had trouble finding square beads that suited the player board.  In the end I did find some from Aliexpress.  I ordered 100 clear beads and 100 mixed colours.  I decided to use the coloured beads to differentiate each resource and will be making a some clear beads with magnets for when a resource goes past 10 production.

Initially I tried gluing the magnets in with PVA (White) Glue.  This would work fine for when the magnets were attached to the player board but if the magnets came into contact with each other one would inevitably get ripped out of its bead.  Hot glue solved this.

Steps for Markers

1. Carefully drill into your beads using a drill bit the same size as your magnet. The hole will act as a guide.  Test fit your magnets.  How much magnet you want sticking out the bottom of each bead is up to you but you want a fairly snug fit.  If you are holding the beads I highly recommend wearing heavy leather gloves.
    
2. Glue your magnets into the beads with a small drop of hot glue. It is easy to use too much glue here. You want just the smallest amount that will do the job.  Leather gloves are recommended here too.  Magnet polarity does not seem to matter so you should be able to glue the magnet at any orientation but test this first with just the bare magnet on the player board beforehand.

That's essentially it.  I found a nice octagon box for marker storage and once I'm finished with the 30 production markers I will be doing 10 clear generic markers to mark the "10" space for when production goes over 10.