Our class to a trip to the Pinball Museum. We got to play with and study the pinball machines to better understand our project and designs. Below are the three pinball machines that my partner and I liked the most.

We were able to see how the components functioned on the inside. One of the first things we looked at was the start button. The button's placement varies, but what it does is the same. In this video, you can see that once the button is pressed, a switch closes which turns on the other components in the pinball machine. You can partially see this in the scoreboard video below. The mechanics behind the start button ultimately rely on an open and closed switch that delivers an electric current to power the pinball machine.

The scoreboard my partner and I will create will use one screen and track the ball count and player's score. The scoreboard shown here uses multiple screens however it functions similarly. The video shows the scoreboard displaying the final score after the end of a game and resetting once the start button is pressed to begin a new game. We understand that the scoreboard is programmed with if/else statements that know when to increase the score number and decrease the ball count.

The triangular bumper is used in all of the pinball machines that we looked at. When the ball hits a sensor on a specific side of the bumper, it closes a switch causing a component called a linear actuator to hit the ball across the playing field.  Oftentimes, a triangular bumper is positioned diagonally from the flippers (as seen in the video), likely as an easy point grab as the flippers typically hit the ball in that direction during gameplay.

We noticed that some pinball machines had a component to prevent the ball from passing a certain point when launched into gameplay. We sketched out how this component works. There is a piece that is attached by an axle-like component. It can flip up one way, but not the other because of the piece of it that hits the top. There were mechanized versions of this same component, but we liked this design because we think we can most easily recreate it.

The launcher has a universal function across all pinball machines to push the pinball into play. The launcher is constructed with a spring and metal axle. A part of that axle sticks out of the machine to be pulled by the player. When the axle is pulled back, the spring coils back creating potential energy. Once, released the axle quickly pushed back into place and launches the pinball into play. The way that the launchers were made is similar to how Kenadie and I crafted out launcher.

The purpose of the ball return is to return the once in play pinball back to the starting position after game play. Unlike the ball returns we have constructed, the ones that we studied were mechanized. On the right, you can see that once the ball drops past the flippers, gravity pulls it and it lands in the space below. While it is not visible, there is a component that pushes the ball back in position to be launched again. This component is likely a servo activated by a sensor.

There are a plethora of lighting plans that we saw in the different pinball machines. Some lights were on parts of the game that interacted with the ball, and others were integrated to the paths of the ball. Regardless of the placement, the lights, whether they were bulbs or neopixels, turned on based on the coded if/else statements. They all reacted to switches and sensors triggered during game play. Lighting sequences varied based on if a certain component was hit by the pinball or a certain number of points were scored.

The flippers are a crucial part of the pinball machine as they are the only thing the user touches in play other than the launcher. The flippers hit the pinball from different angles so that the ball can stay in play and hit the different components in the game. The flippers move at a fixed angle when the designated button is hit. Once that button is hit a circuit closes and the flipper moves. Once that circuit opens again the flipper goes back into its rest position. The movement of the flippers is done with servos.

This was a unique layout that we saw on one of the pinball machines incorporating a 3D cityscape. We took inspiration from this design and are planning to create a similar affect using plateaus and mountains. The way that this is done on the right is with laser cut plastic. We plan on using wood for our design.

These are our final flippers. They needed to rotate upwards at an angle that would cause the pinball to hit the top of the pinball machine when the corresponding button was pressed. The flippers were constructed using laser-cut wood, solenoids, and precut drive shafts. 

In our design, the flipper seen on top of the machine is connected to a drive shaft that goes through the board. On the underside of the board, the drive shaft goes through a flipper-shaped lever that is hit by the solenoid. This design helped when prototyping because Kenadie and I were able to gage the rotation of the flipper when the board was flipped over because the pieces were parallel. Additionally, the flipper is reset to its starting position by a pull spring. The spring is screwed to the side of the lever on the back side of the pinball machine.