Plinko Board

I made this plinko board several years ago for a fellow teacher. Unfortunately, I only took this short video and no photos, and I no longer live in the city (or even country) where I made it, so I can't offer any exact measurements. However, you can see its size relative to me. I am about 171 cm tall. The bottom edge of the box is maybe 6-10 cm from the floor. You can guestimate a height from that info. If not, just make it however big you want it. Nobody will ever know if your plinko board matched mine or not.

Supplies

coated MDF, about 1.5 cm thick

old glue stick caps

drywall screws, approx 1.5cm or 1/2"

Liquid Nails

brad nailer & 1"(28mm) 18 gauge brads, or whatever you want to use to attach parts

4 caster wheels

Step 1: Make the Dang Thing

To make the box I cut sides that are about 10 cm wide. The dividers at the bottom are the same width because the back of the box is attached to the back edge of the frame/sides, it does not fit inside the frame. For the triangle guide pieces inside, I cut a long strip of the material and then set the table saw miter gauge to 45º and cut the needed number of triangles. You could also do this with a carpenter's square that has a 45º angle on it and some other kind of saw. Thank God for table saws and chop/miter saws, though. The triangles help kick the puck back in toward the center of board if it gets too close to the sides. I saw the idea on another plinko board when I was researching and Googled them. You could also just fill the space in with more pegs. All of the MDF parts in this project were assembled using Liquid Nails and 1"(28mm) 18 gauge brads.

Step 2: Pegs and Goal Dividers

The pegs are just the caps from old glue sticks that were attached with short drywall screws to the back of the box after marking out their placement. I remember that I attached some glue caps to a scrap of MDF and played around with the placement of them to figure out how far apart to put them before attaching any to the final project. I would recommend doing this, especially since I cannot recall what the final measurements were.

In a rare stroke of brilliance, I made the dividers at the bottom with a little foot to enable them to stand without being attached to the box. This is so that they can be moved to allow the bottom of the box to be cleaned more easily when it gets dusty, and so that they can be moved to allow for different numbers of goals for whatever the teacher needs at any given time. Though it's not visible in the video, I added legs and a base to the plinko box so that the board is permanently tilted back slightly, perhaps 10º or so from vertical. I also attached four caster wheels to the base to make the whole thing easy to move. I did not paint or decorate it, as I wanted to leave that up to the teacher that I made it for.

Step 3: The Perfect Puck

A decent puck, anyway.

Several things were tested as pucks or disks, but the most suitable option I tried for this board was circles cut from blue construction foam that was about 2cm thick. They moved fairly well and made a satisfying sound as they bounced off of the pegs. Colored paper or printed images or words could be glued to the disk to make it more attractive and to change it for different games or activities. The foam is inexpensive and many disks could be cut from even a scrap of it. Don't cut the pucks too big to fit easily between the pegs. They should be able to bounce back and forth quite a bit as they travel down the board.

Step 4: Apology, Wrap Up, and a Recommendation for Better Instructions

I'm sorry I don't have all of the exact measurements for this project, but this isn't really meant to be a detailed Instructable anyway, just a little inspiration to make something and a vague idea of how to proceed. If you want detailed instructions on how to make a plinko board that's much cooler than this one, look up I Like to Make Stuff's video on YouTube about making one with LED lights and other great upgrades.