Pinball Machine/Pin Ball Machine

This Pinball Machine project is very easy to create, due to both its limited use of resources, and easy to follow, step by step steps. it will take 30-120min to create, depending on how skilled you are.

Supplies

-Corrugated cardboard (if you don't have, just stick 2-3 layers of food box cardboard together to make is thicker and more durable.

- Sticky tape

- Rubber Bands*3

- paper towel roll*3/ toilet paper rolls*6

- 2 Pens/Pencils/ Thick durable sticks

- 2 clothes pegs

- nails/skewers/straight stick'*4

-Scissors

- Coloured Pens or Pencils for colouring (optional), paint, stickers

Step 1: Create a Box

either use an already made box, or create a box that is 50cm long, 30cm wide and 10 cm tall(it can be smaller or larger, but it has to be roughly around that size). if you don't have a box that is the right size, than cut a box that is larger to the correct size, or cut individual pieces ans sticky tape them together.

Step 2: Cut Some Holes

Cut out a hole 9 cm long, and 2 times the height of either the pen/pencil/stick that you are going to use as the flipper, on each side of the box that is 5 cm away from the front of the box, and 1 cm up from the base of the box.

Step 3: Create the Flippers

using the clothes peg and pen/pencil/stick that you are going to use for the flipper, stick the pen/pencil/stick in the end of the clothes peg that you can squeeze. wrap some tap[e around it so it stays in place, and wrap a rubber band around it, a minimum of 7 times. repeat this step twice.

Step 4: Connecting the Flippers to the Box

stick the end of the flipper through the hole so it is poking out 3-6cm. angle the flipper so that the end is touching the top of the hole that you cut out in the second step. push the nail/skewer/straight stick through the smallest hole in the clothes peg, and through the cardboard so that it is stuck onto the cardboard.

Step 5: Adding the Springiness to the Flipper

make sure that the flipper is touching the edge of the cardboard hole that was cut out in step 2. stick another stick/nail/skewer 1-2 cm closer to the side wall of the box than the nail is. wrap one strand of the rubber band that you have wrapped around the flippers already. it should be hard to put it on, because the rubber band should be under tension. try moving the flipper down and up, and see if it springs back into position, than it is fine, but if it doesn't spring back, than try adjusting the tightness of the rubber band, or the thickness of the hole.

Step 6: Adding the Launcher

cut a round hole at the bottom left of the front of the box on side. this should be right next to the edge of the base, and the wall. the hole needs to be round, and large enough for a toilet paper/paper towel/ wrapping paper tube.

poke a small hole 1 cm away from the larger hole on both sides.

cut a thick rubber band into 2 pieces of even length.

Thread one of the rubber band segments through the two smaller holes, and connect the other rubber band to the loose ends by knotting them back together. if you do it correctly it should look something like the picture above.

Step 7: Connecting the Tube to the Launcher

sticky tape 3 toilet paper rolls together.if you don't have toilet paper rolls, then you can use 1.5-2 paper towel rolls, or one third of a wrapping paper tube.

put one end of the long tube into the hole, and stick it down with sticky tape.

next angle the tube up slightly , and tape it to the wall so that it doesn't touch the flipper.

Step 8: Inside Ramp

cut a strip of cardboard that is long enough to reach from the tube, to the bottom edge (as depicted above).

stick it in place with sticky tape.

cut another strip of cardboard that is lock enough to reach from the tube, and curve around the edge(as depicted above).

Step 9: Outside Ramp

cut out a large piece of cardboard, and fold it in 3 places, to create a triangular prism.

tape the edges together so it maintains the triangular shape, and tape down one of the faces to the underneath of the box, in such a way that the entire box is angled upwards.

Step 10: Adding the Obstacles

Start off by cutting toilet paper rolls in half, and sticking them in places around the board.

if you don't think that there are enough obstacles, you can cut some cardboard strips and fold them into shapes if you desire.

Step 11: Finished

You have now completed the Pinball Machine, and you can decorate it to your hearts desire. because it is made out of cardboard, you can paint it, draw on it, put stickers on it, etc.

Hope you have fun playing with it!