About a year ago, friends and I put together a bunch of Ricochet Robot boards, since the game is out of print. Here's what we did:

• Purchased four squares of matboard. 8"x8" would do, though we used larger.
• Drew up the playfield with a drawing editor, and printed it on a color printer.
• Pasted the playfield onto the matboard with rubber cement.
• Got little wooden men, circle punches, felt, and more mat board from the crafts store.
• Painted the wooden men with spray paint.
• Punched felt circles for the base of the wooden men, and glued them on.
• Printed the piece layouts, glued them to the extra matboard, and circle-punched the pieces. We actually ended up using several layers of matboard, since the circle punch wouldn't do a thick piece at one go.
• Coated the pieces and playfield with clear oil-based varethane.
• Purchased sand timers at a game store.
• LaTeXed up the rules and laser printed them.
• Got big clear plastic filing envelopes to stick the whole set in.

For my latest game, I just needed a Pinochle deck, some Poker chips, and the rules. Much easier to build.