Introduction: Life-sized PLINKO Board

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This is a massive PLINKO board that me and 3 of my team members created for a school project.

Supplies

Tools

  1. 3d printer
  2. Wood glue
  3. Hot glue
  4. Band saw, circular saw, hand saw (or anything you can cut wood with)

Materials

  1. ~250g of PLA filament
  2. One 12" x 24" sheet of wood
  3. Two 4" x 24" sheet of wood (thickness can vary, in our example the wood had 0.5" thickness)
  4. One 4" x 14" sheet of wood

Optional

  1. Printed graphics
  2. Arduino/electrical components
  3. Laser engraver
  4. 98 1/2" wooden dowels, instead of 3d printing them

Attachments

Step 1: Prepare the Wood

Using your preferred method to cut wood (Band saw, hand saw, circular saw etc.), cut 4 pieces of wood out. One being 12" x 24", two being 4" x 24", and one being 14" x 4".

Step 2: 3d Print the Pieces

Now, we need to 3d print our pieces.

  1. 98 pegs/dowels (cylinders)
  2. 8 bottom dividers (rectangles)
  3. 10 border pieces v1 (triangles)
  4. 2 border pieces v2 (half-triangles)

You can also buy 98 1/2" wood dowels online if you don't want to 3d print them

Attachments

Step 3: Glue the Wood Pieces Together

Using wood glue, glue together the wood pieces together as seen in the image.

Step 4: Add the Borders

After the wood glue dry for some time, you can glue on the triangle borders as seen in the image with the semi-triangles on top, then the full triangles descending from there

Step 5: Add the Pegs

Glue each peg 1 inch apart horizontally and to go down a row, go down 2 inches and left/right 0.5 inches


if you are struggling you can also laser engrave a peg template and then glue the pegs on top.

Attachments

Step 6: Add the Bottom Dividers

The first peg is 1.625 inches from the side, and 1 inch from the top/bottom. from there place each peg 1.25 inches apart from each other horizontally.

Step 7: Add a Transparent Cover

I recommend you add this cover to stop the disc/ball from falling out of the plinko board so you can see where your disc/ball landed. The size of my cover is 14x4in but the size can vary.

Step 8: PLINKO Disc/ball

Use any small ball or disc you find around your house to play, if you can't find anything you can also 3d print a disc.

Attachments

Step 9: Extra Steps

The PLINKO board is done! You can add extra things such as printing out a graphic, engraving your names, or adding lights and music with an Arduino. If you have trouble with the disc/ball falling out of the board, you can lean it backwards on a chair or something stable to make sure it doesn't fall out.

Step 10: The End/game Scoring

You can play the game in many different ways. For example you could start with a certain amount of points, and gain points if you land in the middle, and lose points if you land on the edge. You could also guess where the disc/ball is going to land before you drop. There are many possibilities, the sky's the limit!


You have now finished your PLINKO board, congratulations!