Giant Pachinko Machine
I recently designed and built the only Giant Pachinko Machine for the Westchester Children's Museum in New York. 20 feet long and 12 feet high, no humans can resist this thing! At each end, visitors control the speed and angle the balls are launched, aiming at bells, spinners and hundreds of pegs. The whole wall is enclosed so the balls never escape.​ Not only is it fun to play with, it is a great tool for teaching the physics of throwing anything.
Here is a sequence of images and a video for prototyping the mechanism that will reliably feed the balls.
I tried multiple pitching machines and none were right. Bought industrial variable speed motors, and a perfectly balanced tire and wheel from a maker of one of the pitching machines I bought. Here's a video of the prototyping success.
After protoyping, I decided for a
conveyor instead of a feed wheel.
Getting really close to finishing final conveyors and launchers. The motor is not shown here. It will be on this side, visible in a clear box. Onwards!
