Mini pinball machine
By Phil King. Posted
This article was originally published as part of HackSpace magazine, which has since been incorporated into Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
After abandoning an attempt to build an electromechanical pinball table, maker Chris Dalke set about creating a desktop one with a 7-inch HDMI touchscreen instead. “I wanted to retain the feeling of a physical arcade game with intense sound, vibration, and colours, as well as the tactile response of the inputs,” he says.
Powered by a Raspberry Pi 4, his screen-based version of pinball is coded in C++ and OpenGL, using the open-source software development library raylib. An Arduino is used for the button inputs and LED matrix scoreboard. The enclosure is laser-cut from maple wood.
If your carpentry and mechanical skills are up to it, you could have a go at building a full-size physical pinball table, like Frogger1108’s beautifully finished Arduino-controlled project.
Advertisement
Get started with Raspberry Pi – everything you need to know to start your journey!
When not editing books and contributing to The MagPi, Phil enjoys playing the piano (badly), astronomy, and watching classic sitcoms.
Subscribe to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine
Save up to 37% off the cover price and get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with a subscription to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
More articles
Unusual tools: degaussing tool
Quick Tip Check for residual magnetism with a Hall effect probe, or slide a compass close to the object and see whether it deflects. Degaussing isn’t just something that happened to CRT monitors back in the day. There are a surprising number of situations where degaussing tools are needed, and they are used in everything […]
Read more →
RP2350 Pico W5 review
It’s Raspberry Pi Pico 2, but with a lot more memory.
Read more →
Retro 3D-printed Typeframe PX-88
Distraction-free writing on a piece of new, vintage kit – it’s like the olden days, but better.
Read more →