Prototyping a Well-Designed Pinball System

UC San Diego ECE 115 Course: Fast Prototyping

Project Description —

This course, taught by Michael Yip, provides an introduction to system design, developing both hands-on and process skills to prepare for successful independent design projects in future courses and advanced research (in academia or in industry). Making something that really works is not only fun and
satisfying, but the process inevitably includes lots of learning.

Project Requirements —

Over the course of four 2-week-long lab modules, we designed a functioning pinball machine with these minimum requirements:

1. Paddle should be able to propel ball through the length of playfield.

2. A method to introduce ball into the field of play.

3. Multiple scoring mechanisms.

4. Display and keep score.

5. Recognize when a round is lost.

6. Start/stop button to control system.

7. Game resets itself when system turns on and when all rounds are complete.

8. Ball naturally moves toward paddles.

9. Paddle(s) are activated electronically (i.e., cannot be a manual mechanism)

10. Auditory feedback for score.

11. Actuator that fires / moves when it detects ball.

12. Uses optical sensors for at least two applications.

13. Uses at least one of each: electric motors, solenoids, RC servos.

14. Automated gating mechanism that introduces ball into play, or stops the ball once all rounds are
    over. There should be handling of the ball by the user between rounds.

15. Device must be visually appealing.

Tools —

• Arduino

• Fusion 360 for CAD modeling

• Electronic components

• Soldering components

• Laser-cutting tools

• Testing equipment: function generator, oscilloscopes, multimeters

My Contribution —

In a group of three students, I was primarily in charge of the wiring of the circuit and the accompanying code to power the pinball machine. For each sub-system, I tested multiple times before and verified with my teammates. I also sketched the model for the machine that was later designed in Fusion360 by my teammates. Also, I significantly contributed to the final documentation for the machine.

Acknowledgements —

Thank you Professor Yip and especially to the exceptional TA, Zhaowei Yu, who guided us to produce a well-functioning machine. Also, shout out to my team mates: Nicholas Rowlett and Sasha Kubichka. It was great working with you both, especially through the rough times of some circuits not working, wrong 3D printed models, bugs in the code, an LED blowing up …

Behind The Scenes—

Building out and testing individual system components is cool until you have to put it all together… my job was to do the circuit wiring for most of the circuits. I am here to say that putting it all together gave me nightmares. Thankfully the machine worked as expected +/- some last minute fixes!