Engineering Applications

Pinball Project:

Pinball Project.pdf

Brief:

The Pinball Machine project is a yearlong project, where students create a functional pinball machine with minimal teacher instructions. This means that student use prior knowledge, past experiences, and takin initiative, to create the machine. A grand challenge, but one that also sparks creativity and problem solving within students.

Engineering Design Notebook:

Jack Lovell - Engineering Notebook Template

This is our engineering design notebook where we document our progress and challenges we face daily.

Pinball research - Pinball Museum - 8/12/2025

This is a field trip to a pinball museum we went on for research purposes. During this experience, we tested out several pinball machines and chose 1 of our favorites to record a video about. The pinball machine I chose was Marvel-based and centered on the Infinity War movie, and the main goal was to defeat Thanos. There were several components in this pinball that I liked, but one that stood out was the bumpers themed around Thor and Captain America. These were vital for the game and helped keep the flow of the game. I would like to implement references to the characters inside our universe.

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Pinball Launcher:

Constrants

This document is what we used for grading and making sure we follow all the necessary requirements for the launcher. Several of these we created it, us the students, in order to see what we found to be necessary.

Work in progress Photos:

This is a photo of the very beginning, where we created a sketch and gathered the required materials to continue forward.

This photo is of day 2, in this photo we laser cut squares to serve as the piece on the front of the launcher hitting the ball.

This photo is day 3, in this we attached the front piece, gathered springs, and lasered cut the pieces of the handle.

This the dowel, attached and painted with a 3D printed character from our theme on top. We went with orange and black due to it being the main color scheme from the show we are basing it off of.

Finished prototype:

This is our finished prototype, It is all the pieces above combined together with the addition of paint and an extra detail of a chainsaw on the handle. This prototype worked well but had several glaring issues. An example of an issue we had is that the launcher is too long, wiggles due to the lack of stability and a holder to keep it in place.

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Final launcher design:

For the final launcher we took into consideration of the errors made in our prototype. Firstly, we completely changed our handle to not only match our theme better, but to also shorten the total length. Then, while installing we add pieces of wood on either side of launcher in order to reduce wiggle, with the downside of increasing friction. To counter act the increased friction that reduces the total power, we added more smaller springs to increase the power, and make sure it hits the top of the board.

ScoreBoard:

Constraints:

This is the document that contains all the constraints that needed to be fulfilled.

Prototyping the Holder:

A major process of creating the holder was creating a perfect holder. This is due to the fragileness of the screen and the need for a seamless finish. In total I went through 4 different measurements before arriving at the perfect size.

Coding and Wiring:

Wiring:

The wiring was a very easy part of this component with all the wiring being very straight forward. The only challenge was probably making it look neat and organized.

Coding:

The coding was mostly handled by my partner Titus with a slight information dump onto me on how it works. The code had 2 major parts, 1, it needed to correct display all requirements, and 2, it needs too be able to reset on a loss.

Design:

For the design we decided upon the logo of chainsaw man that we engraved into a piece of medium base plywood. We later colored this in use paint markers to give the logo more of a chainsaw look.

Final Scoreboard:

This is our final scoreboard with all components combine together, as well as the 2 buttons. One of these is button to simulate lose of a ball which ticks down the total ball count displayed on screen. The other one is to simulate when a target is hit and grants 100 points per hit. The rest of the changes were the holder which was changed into wood for longevity and the installation of the title and holder.

Pinball board:

This is the rubric for the Game layout of our Pinball machine, the entire file consists of 3 different on shapes of the holes, ball guides and the combination of the two.

Scoring and lighting plan:

The document below contains the lighting and scoring plan for our pinball machine. We did this early in the project in order to set a layout for us to follow. With descriptions of when and what activates a light as well as what gains score.

Copy of Lighting Plan and Scoring System

Sketches:

In total I created 2 sketches, one on a small piece of paper as a draft and other on a board sized scale piece of paper as final. These drawings include all components and ball guides on board. The first smaller drawing is an exception to that with it only containing the launcher and top ball guide. The second photo is a work in progress photo of the final, before the final had all componets installed.

Final design:

Summary:

This was the final On-shape design, which includes all holes and ball guides as vector lines for cutting on the CNC machine. This is based off my paper sketch, translated into the On-shape program with better accuracy and precision with measurements. I personally created this design with helpful input from my partner, and this really helped me developed my On-shape skills.

Personally challenges:

A challenge I faced during the creation of the board was layout itself. This was due to size constraints and having to take wiring into account with placement of components. To work around this, I made sure there was plenty of space between components and that there was space away from the wall too prevent crowding of wires.

Conclusion:

In total, this component took a serious amount of time mainly due to the heavy On-shape load and needing precise measurements, with the upside of directly improving my On-Shape skills.

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