# Episode 240: Lego Batman-Joker pinball

**Source:** Pinball Profile  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-01-04  
**Duration:** 11m 31s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.pinballprofile.com/episode-240-lego-batman-joker-pinball/

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## Analysis

Jeff Teolis interviews Luke Horwath (Luke99), a 16-year-old Lego enthusiast who built a fully functional Lego Batman-Joker themed pinball machine featuring motorized toys, working flippers, a roller coaster, and over 7,000 hand-placed Lego pieces. The machine uses time-based scoring rather than traditional pinball scoring, with all mechanics powered by Lego motors and batteries. Dwight Sullivan from Stern Pinball also appears, offering design feedback and expressing enthusiasm for Luke's work and future projects.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Luke Horwath started the Lego Batman pinball project in July 2018 — _Jeff Teolis introduction stating project began July 2018, displayed at Chicago Expo_
- [HIGH] The machine contains all 39 villains from the Lego Batman movie — _Luke Horwath explicitly states 'we've got all 39 villains from the Lego Batman movie here'_
- [HIGH] The Lego Batman pinball machine uses over 7,000 individually hand-laid pieces with no glue — _Luke Horwath: 'on my best estimates and all of my individual piece orders, I think we're over 7,000 individually hand-laid pieces, no glue, just the LEGO Clutch Power'_
- [HIGH] The machine features five total motors powered entirely by Lego motors and batteries — _Jeff Teolis: 'we've got five total motors, two battery boxes, all completely powered by Lego and their own batteries'_
- [HIGH] Luke's parents initially refused to buy him a pinball machine, prompting him to build one — _Luke Horwath: 'they just flat out no...so with my history of Lego and custom builds, I decided, well, I could try building one myself'_
- [HIGH] Luke has also built a 13,000-piece fully operational Lego claw machine — _Luke Horwath: 'My latest project was keeping with the life-sized arcade machine theme, a life-sized, fully operational, 13,000-piece Lego claw machine'_
- [HIGH] Luke is currently working on a secret project related to roller coasters — _Luke Horwath: 'I've been very, very much into roller coasters lately, and you can expect something big'_
- [HIGH] Luke's projects now occupy an entire room of his house — _Luke Horwath: 'Between the pinball machine, claw machine, and then other projects, we're taking up about an entire room of the house'_

### Notable Quotes

> "This is amazing. This is a working Lego pinball machine. Not just any Lego pinball machine. A Lego Batman pinball machine."
> — **Jeff Teolis**, Opening segment
> _Sets up the episode's main subject with enthusiasm and context_

> "I've done a full city layout. I've done other minifigure scale displays. And this is my first ever life-size build, combining my love of Lego and then my hobby of pinball as well."
> — **Luke Horwath**, Early interview
> _Establishes Luke's progression from smaller projects to life-sized builds and his dual passion_

> "So I finally walked into the kitchen at dinner sat down and finally asked the question mom and dad can we get a pinball machine for the basement you know what they said you're grounded no they they just flat out no."
> — **Luke Horwath**, Mid-interview
> _Explains the origin story and motivation for building the Lego pinball machine_

> "One of the more challenging things was definitely building the flippers as it is all mechanical and all Lego."
> — **Luke Horwath**, Machine explanation segment
> _Highlights technical challenges in recreating traditional pinball mechanics with Lego_

> "The Lego motors spin really, really fast, so I needed to gear it down, so smaller to bigger gears, to make sure he could spin slow enough, a perfect difficulty for the player."
> — **Luke Horwath**, Clayface explanation
> _Demonstrates engineering problem-solving in adapting Lego components for pinball gameplay_

> "It's all battery all using the LEGO system so it's all LEGO motors, LEGO wires, and even the battery boxes are LEGO."
> — **Luke Horwath**, Power system explanation
> _Shows commitment to maintaining Lego authenticity throughout entire machine_

> "I would want some cool room. A Slimer. Oh, no, please. What? I'm just kidding. No, no Slimer. This thing that spins. Clayface. Clayface, right? He's pretty cool, and I would want to build some rule on that."
> — **Dwight Sullivan**, Design feedback segment
> _Stern designer playfully engages with machine and offers game design perspective_

> "Between the pinball machine, claw machine, and then other projects, we're taking up about an entire room of the house at this point."
> — **Luke Horwath**, Closing discussion
> _Indicates scale of Luke's ongoing creative projects and commitment of personal resources_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Luke Horwath | person | 16-year-old Lego builder and YouTuber (Luke99) who created the Lego Batman pinball machine; passionate about custom Lego creations |
| Luke99 | person | YouTube handle for Luke Horwath |
| Jeff Teolis | person | Host of Pinball Profile podcast conducting the interview |
| Dwight Sullivan | person | Game designer and programmer at Stern Pinball; guest on episode providing design feedback on Luke's machine |
| Ann | person | Luke Horwath's mother, attended Chicago Expo and discussed the pinball machine purchase negotiation |
| Brady | person | Jeff Teolis' son who builds Lego creations |
| Lego Batman Joker Pinball | product | Fully functional Lego-built pinball machine featuring Batman villains, 7,000+ pieces, motorized mechanics, time-based scoring |
| Chicago Expo | event | Pinball event where Luke displayed his Lego Batman pinball machine |
| Brick World Chicago | event | Annual Lego convention where Luke displayed the pinball machine |
| Lego Claw Machine | product | Luke's follow-up project; 13,000-piece fully operational life-sized claw machine with functional Lego software |
| Stern Pinball | company | Commercial pinball manufacturer; Dwight Sullivan works as designer/programmer |
| Lego | company | Toy manufacturer; headquartered in Denmark; Luke encountered Lego employee from Denmark location at Brick World Chicago |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Homebrew/Custom Pinball Construction, Lego Building and Custom Creations, Mechanical Engineering and Problem-Solving
- **Secondary:** Pinball Machine Design and Rules, Lego Batman Theme and Villains, Youth and Community Involvement in Pinball
- **Mentioned:** Life-Sized Arcade Machine Projects

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.92) — Highly enthusiastic reception of Luke's work from host, Dwight, and implied broader Expo audience. Jeff expresses repeated admiration ('This is amazing', 'It's crazy how good this is'). Dwight offers genuine creative engagement and praise ('The kid's awesome'). No negative commentary; episode celebrates achievement and creativity.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Young builder showcasing custom pinball creation at Chicago Expo demonstrates ongoing community support for homebrew/DIY pinball projects and inter-generational knowledge sharing (confidence: high) — Luke displayed machine at Chicago Expo and Brick World Chicago; Dwight Sullivan (Stern designer) actively engaged with design feedback; positive reception from Expo attendees
- **[design_philosophy]** Time-based rather than score-based game mechanic represents alternative approach to traditional pinball scoring, influenced by Lego constraints and authenticity goals (confidence: high) — Luke explicitly states design uses time-based scoring clock rather than traditional scoring due to 'LEGO constraints and the authenticity of the machine I was going for'
- **[market_signal]** Young hobbyist leverages creative problem-solving and existing skillset (Lego building) to overcome material/financial barriers (parental refusal to purchase pinball machine) (confidence: high) — Luke's origin story: parents said 'flat out no' to buying machine; he responded by building one himself using Lego expertise

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## Transcript

it's time now for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host Jeff Teolas. So you can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. Please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher and check us out on Instagram at Pinball Profile. I hope you enjoyed your holidays. I had a good time with my family in our house. Christmas is for kids and they're getting a little bit older, but still I get to relive my youth when my son Brady opens up and builds his latest Lego creations. I've always liked Lego, but I'm not a fan like our next guest. Luke Horwath, or Luke99 on YouTube, started a project in July of 2018. Many of us got to see it at Chicago Expo. This is amazing. This is a working Lego pinball machine. Not just any Lego pinball machine. A Lego Batman pinball machine. The Batmobile's on it. The Joker's on here. I see, is that Clayface? Clayface and all the other villains. It's all created by Luke Horwath. This is awesome. My God, there's a working roller coaster on here. There is. There's not only the working roller coaster, we've got five total motors, two battery boxes, all completely powered by Lego and their own batteries. I see Bane in the background. I see Mr. Freeze. All my favorite villains. Yep. Is that the Clock King? We've got Clock King. We've got Bane. We've got Mr. Freeze. Egghead. We've got Egghead. We've got all 39 villains from the Lego Batman movie here. Wow. Some I don't even know. I'm learning. What's this guy? Calendar Man? Polka Dot Man. We've got Calendar Man back there, too. We've got a little bit of everything. Plenty for people to find. Yeah. So hold on a second here. Now, is your love for pinball or Lego? I know a little bit about Luke99, and you're a big Lego guy. In fact, you create Lego. I do. So for the past couple years now, I've really been getting into custom creations of my own design. It all started with a five-gallon tub of unsorted brick, which now has become a full workstation in my room. I've done plenty of projects. I've done a full city layout. I've done other minifigure scale displays. And this is my first ever life-size build, combining my love of Lego and then my hobby of pinball as well. I got my kids into Lego very early because it reminded me of my childhood. And by the way, also here, Dwight Sullivan, who is admiring this as well, too. And Dwight and Luke, for me, Lego meant a lot for me as a kid to create your own things. And then, of course, they had the pre-built kits. And then you would follow instructions along. So I got my kids into it saying, you know what? This will help you build someday. See that shelf? I built it because I learned how to do Lego when I was a kid. You think about Lego and stuff like that, right? Yeah, that's right. So were you a big Lego guy, Dwight? Actually no. What? No? So I was a Toggle Block guy. Toggle Blocks are like Beta versus VHS. I was into the Toggle Blocks and Legos were stupid. Okay, enough of Dwight. We'll come back to you, Dwight, on that horrible, horrible comment. My goodness. Pay no attention to Luke, all right? He's a crazy old man. No, he's a great friend. So, yeah, how long have you been into Lego? So I've been building sets ever since I can remember. My mom and I would open up the box, sit down at the kitchen table. She would help me sort all the pieces. We'd sit through, put the sets together. And then it was about three years ago when I was in seventh or eighth grade that I really got into sorting and doing custom creations, building things in my own design. The pinball aspect is I've always kind of liked pinball machines casually. I've never been super competitive. But whenever I saw one, I would definitely give it a play or two, and this really combines both of my hobbies. So while you're at Expo, are you going to go out and play some of these machines, maybe get some other ideas? Yes, for sure. I've already been out on the floor, got some amazing games here, stuff I've only seen on the internet, finally get to see in person and play. It's amazing. And did you notice on the games that they have certain mods and whatnot? You could probably think, oh, I could do something there. I think Lego would be a great theme for a pinball machine. Of course, of course, for sure. So many different aspects you can work in. You can go a lot of different directions, a lot of different themes. Really, as with Lego's brand, it's only your imagination that limits you. So Dwight was here as you were originally explaining how this game works. You talked about some of the working motors. I'm going to show pictures on our Facebook page, but explain some of the things you have in your Lego Joker Batman pinball machine. Right, so we'll start at the very front. Um, we've got the motorized ball return, which is just a little track and a conveyor belt that pops the ball up to the rubber band activated plunger. One of the more challenging things was definitely building the flippers as it is all mechanical and all Lego. So that could pose some constraints, but it basically works on a gigantic rod, which goes halfway into the machine. And when pushed in, trips a set of Technic pieces with a rubber band around them, which pushes the flipper back out. And when you let go, just like a real pinball machine, the flipper pops right back into place. We've got Clayface, who spins around slowly, and that was another challenge. The Lego motors spin really, really fast, so I needed to... You had to slow it down. I did. I needed to gear it down, so smaller to bigger gears, to make sure he could spin slow enough, a perfect difficulty for the player. And then we've got the oscillating Man-Bat, which, once again, is all mechanical. So the motor continuously runs. It's a chain on a couple gears, once again geared down. And there's a couple chain links that are just a little bit wider, which trip some knobs which make Man-Bat go back and forth. And then at the very back, we've got the roller coaster, which operates with a chain lift just like you find at an amusement park and another wheel which spins really fast to give it enough kick to make it all the way around the loop. Where the power to this? It is all battery, all using the Lego system. So it's all Lego motors, Lego wires, and even the battery boxes are Lego. So I see the big display on the back, and it's not a score-based game, it's a time-based game. Do you want to explain that? Yeah, that's exactly right. So due to the Lego constraints and the authenticity of the machine I was going for, it's a big score clock. So as soon as the ball reaches the top of the machine, I'll be standing off to the side with a remote that starts and stops the clock. It makes it up to the top, I start the clock. That's running one ball. One try is all the player gets. As soon as the ball drains, I stop the clock. And on the top right of the machine, we've got a leaderboard with some times. And then just like a real pinball machine, keeping with the pinball feel, you only get three characters to enter in your name. L-R-H, is that you? That's Luke. That's me, of course. I play it all the time. I've got a home field advantage. I mean, it's a little unfair when you think about it, but it's a lot of fun. I think I could beat the home field advantage. Oh, no cradling up, though. That's cheating. Is that cheating? I think so, yeah. If you get the ball there, just hold it right there, yeah, that'd be cheating. Okay, now, Dwight, having a quick look at this. If you got this, sent you, and said, okay, code it, what's one of the first things that comes to mind? I would want some cool room. A Slimer? Oh, no, please. What? I'm just kidding. No, no Slimer. This thing that spins. Clayface. Clayface, right? He's pretty cool, and I would want to build some rule on that. Like, try to, you know, what happens when you hit him. Like a bash toy? I'm thinking score, but I like the whole time idea. So I'm now spinning ideas about time. And, like, how would you... Like a speed run, maybe? So you've got... Or maybe hitting him adds some time to your clock. Wow. I like that idea a lot. Well, this is good, too. And how many pieces of Lego? Have you figured that out? Yeah. So on my best estimates and all of my individual piece orders, I think we're over 7,000 individually hand-laid pieces, no glue, just the Lego clutch power holding them together. You know, I don't know if Lego has seen this or not. I was just in actually Denmark, and that is the home of Lego. And when you go through the airport, there's this huge Lego Fest. You've got to send this off to Denmark and let them see this. Send your video, your YouTube video. Yeah, that would be something. I mean, I've been to the Lego store, obviously. I've been at Brick World Chicago when I displayed this, the annual Lego convention. I was actually approached by an employee from Denmark location and talked with him about the machine. Obviously not licensing or product idea, but just license. License. Yeah, exactly. If you're making a homebrew, you do whatever you want. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. You were mentioning earlier your mom, Ann, is here as well, too. The whole idea of this was you wanted to buy a pinball machine, correct? That's exactly right. And you had to negotiate with your parents on splitting the costs or your mom explained to me, so I just need you to explain. Yeah, well, so it wasn't quite that nice. I have been, as I mentioned, wanting a pinball machine for a while, and so I finally walked into the kitchen at dinner, sat down, and finally asked the question: Mom and Dad, can we get a pinball machine for the basement? You know what they said? You're grounded? No, they just flat out no. Just no. No room for negotiation. So with my history of Lego and custom builds, I decided, well, I could try building one myself. It's crazy how good this is. Thank you. Yeah, it's very, very nice, and I'll put a video, too. I'll put a working video on our Facebook page, too. Yeah, perfect. That'd be great. Wow. When's the next one going to be? I mean, you've done one. This is a piece of cake, right? You're going to do another one? Yeah, we'll see. My latest project was keeping with the life-sized arcade machine theme: a life-sized, fully operational, 13,000-piece Lego claw machine. Oh, my God. I saw the pictures. Fully coated with the Lego software and everything. The claw. It's a real claw machine. The claw. Yes. Toys for all knows. Wow. Is the next thing going to be another pinball machine or another toy like the claw or something unique? Well, it's a little bit of a secret for now, but I can... You are working on something. I am. The only hint I'll give is that... Well, kind of giving it away. I've been very, very much into roller coasters lately, and you can expect something big. Oh, wow. I saw a roller coaster topper. There's a pinball machine called Roller Coaster Tycoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got around to playing that one. That one's one of my favorites. Did they have the topper on it where the actual working roller coaster was on it? I didn't get a chance to see. I saw that at one show. I don't know if it's here, but you've got a real working roller coaster, too, so we'll get that on video. Luke, I'm so impressed. A 16-year-old guy to do this, and when you build something like this, you've got to keep space for it, and you've got your cities and stuff. I imagine real estate is the top part now. Between the pinball machine, claw machine, and then other projects, we're taking up about an entire room of the house at this point. Do you have any siblings? I do, just one sister, but thankfully... You're going to kick her out of her room? Sorry, the new Lego room. Sorry, you're on the couch, sis. Yeah, nowhere to go but up, really. Luke, congratulations. Very impressive, and a lot of people at Expo are really enjoying your project. Yeah, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Dwight, what do you think? I think it's awesome. I can't wait to see what's coming next from Luke. Yeah, the claw machine and maybe a roller coaster. The kid's awesome. I want to ride the roller coaster. Oh, Dwight. Oh, Dwight. Maybe. You know what? Yeah. Go big. Yeah, life-sized. Why not? All right, Luke, thank you very much. Dwight, thanks for stopping by. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. Don't forget to find us on Instagram and subscribe on your favorite podcatcher. I'm Jeff Teolas. Everything is awesome. Everything is cool when you're part of a team. Everything is awesome when we're living our dream.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 10748978-b4fc-4a7c-b9b9-e252a8b46afb*