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.