HOMEBREW
My Own Pinball Machine
Kelly Short
TOM KUEHN
is a mechatronic engineer from Newcastle, Australia. He loves tinkering with electronics, mechanics and everything in between.
PINBALL MACHINES HAVE ALWAYS FASCINATED ME, and after studying engineering for two years in 2005, I felt I knew enough to build one from scratch. After all, how hard could it be?
Seven years later, I finally have a finished machine to show for all my hard work. The player takes the role of an archetypal James Bond villain; the scoreboard tallies the player's percentage of world domination.
I started out with a blank sheet of plywood and began sketching the layout of the main parts, such as flippers, pop-bumpers, slingshots, ramps, and drop targets. With the help of some pinball simulation software, I was able to playtest my designs before even picking up a tool. Once I was sure about the layout, the fun started, as I cut, drilled, and routed my playfield to accommodate the parts. I built many of them myself, including target arrays, plastic ramps, wire frames, and ball guides.
I then built a cabinet to house the playfield, using a recycled shower screen for the glass top. With the help of an artist friend, I painted cartoon artwork on the playfield and sealed it in with a clear coat. I also built an LED backlit scoreboard using 7-segment displays and artwork printed on translucent film.
For the brains of the machine, I designed a custom circuit board with an ATmega32 and some interface chips, allowing me to individually control 256 LEDs and accept 64 switch inputs. I added two sound modules to play sound effects and music from SD cards. Finally, after lots of programming, testing, and debugging, my machine came to life!
After playtesting the machine for a while now, it seems I made things too difficult. The high score is a measly 18%, but taking over the world was never going to be easy… 
+ See more photos: worlddominationpinball.wordpress.com
