Pachinko Machines are a great canvas to express your boundless creativity! The designs you make and how you arrange your pins, levers, cups, spinners, traps and other tricky obstacles is totally up to you! A pachinko machine is like a pinball machine that hangs straight up and down, so you can think of it as mechanical art. We can't wait to hang our masterpiece on our wall to wow everyone who visits Maker Camp HQ.
Just like the marble drop we made in the last Maker Camp project, balls tumble through a bunch of pins, but they’re not as regularly spaced and make lots of patterns, and you can decide on yours! In Japan, you collect the balls to trade for prizes, but for our pachinko machine, a finished game you made yourself is the sweet reward you get at the end!
Early pachinko machines were 100% mechanical, but lately the pachinko designers have been adding electronics and color video screens. You can make your pachinko machine more complicated by adding a MaKey MaKey and Scratch, or enhancing your machine with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi. We’ve got some really cutting edge Campers out there, and we want to see what amazing things you’ll do with whatever you have, either with the simplest mechanics or pulling out all the stops.
For a supplies list and step-by-step project build, please download our printable instructions and supply list: https://makercamp.com/fall2015/pdfs/
Let’s get making!