The Aussie Pinball Podcast Ep 7: Rob Milla

The Pinball Network·video·46m 8s·analyzed·Jul 28, 2022

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Australian champ Rob Miller shares restoration expertise and pinball scene growth in Townsville.

Summary

Rob Miller, Australian pinball champion from Townsville, discusses his entry into pinball collecting through a $40 Williams purchase around 2007, his extensive restoration work including a notable 14-machine 'possum pins' haul from Magnetic Island, and the thriving competitive pinball scene he's helped build in North Queensland with monthly tournaments across four venues.

Key Claims

Rob Miller is the current longest-reigning Australian pinball champion, having won in 2020 before COVID caused a tournament skip.
high confidence · Host introduction and Rob's confirmation of the title.
Rob acquired 14 pinball machines from Magnetic Island for $2,000 total ($250 per machine average) after negotiating for 18 months.
high confidence · Rob's detailed account of the 'possum pins' haul; machines included two Twilight Zone, two Doctor Who, The The Addams Family, Creature, getaways, Party Zone, two Fish Tales, Dracula.
Rob's first pinball machine was a Williams purchased for $40 around 2007 after finding it at a garage sale.
high confidence · Rob's direct account of discovering the machine and fixing a 40-pin connector issue using pin repair web pages.
Rob built a custom Medieval Madness conversion from an NBA Fastbreak cabinet without having an original machine to reference.
high confidence · Rob's account of the 18-month+ project using photos and forum information, fabricating custom axles and shafts.
A garden hose cleaning video Rob posted sparked international backlash due to misunderstanding of Australian humour; the machine had been underwater for 4 days during a Townsville flood.
high confidence · Rob's explanation of the viral post and subsequent restoration of the Terminator 2 machine.
Rob's 11-year-old son Lewis won a local competition in December with top-10 Australian players present, beating Peter Farley-Jenkin (age 16).
high confidence · Rob's detailed account of the Summer Slam series event at his place with 35 competitors.
Townsville's pinball tournament scene grew from 2 attendees at Rob's first event to 12-15 regulars, now with 4 venues and at least one competition per month.
high confidence · Rob's chronological account of the scene's evolution from early Aussie Arcade days.
Rob sold approximately 16 pinball machines to fund a wakeboarding boat and custom 6x12 metre shed.

Notable Quotes

“I had zero idea what pinball machines were worth. and because I always like a bargain, I talked them down to $40.”
Rob Miller@ 9:23 — Origin story of his entry into pinball; illustrates the casual nature of machine discovery pre-internet era.
“it was a real adventure... a live possum ran out it was uh quite phenomenal”
Rob Miller@ 13:24 — The origin of the 'possum pins' nickname; memorable incident that became community lore.
“I think a few of our overseas friends don't quite get the dry Aussie sense of humour. Nor did they cotton on that Townsville had just been through a horrific flood in the preceding three days.”
Rob Miller@ 19:17 — Explains the garden hose video controversy; shows community misunderstanding and cultural context.
“he actually won the whole competition... He got in the finals. He beat someone very well in the first round... had to play Peter Farley-Jenkin, who is an incredible player... Lewis just went up there with that mindset... he actually won the whole competition.”
Rob Miller@ 25:53 — Pride in his son's tournament victory; demonstrates youth talent emerging in Townsville scene.
“I think very early on... I organised one and two people other than myself turned up... kept persevering... and then I had another meet and we we had about 10 or 12 in that”
Rob Miller@ 27:39 — Documents the grassroots growth of the Townsville tournament scene through persistence.

Entities

Rob MillerpersonDr JohnpersonLewis MillerpersonPeter Farley-JenkinpersonTonypersonBillpersonJuan Peter WattpersonEmilyperson Alexperson

Signals

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community_signal: Townsville pinball tournament scene grew from solo organizer with 2 attendees to a thriving community with 4 venues, monthly competitions, and participation from top-10 Australian players.
high · Rob's chronological account of the scene evolution: 2 attendees → 10-12 → 12-15 → four venues → 35 competitors at December event; at least one competition per month now.
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collector_signal: Rob's entry story reflects the pre-internet era when pinball machines were widely available and undervalued; machines could be negotiated down significantly ($50 to $40).
high · Rob's purchase of Flash around 2007 for $40; his comment about current buyers crying over the $250/machine average from the possum pins haul; references to garage sales and want ads in newspapers.
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restoration_signal: Rob developed advanced restoration skills through autodidactic methods: farm background, forum learning, and iterative problem-solving. Self-fabricates unavailable parts (axles, shafts, globe holders).
high · Rob's account of learning board repair from forums, pulling apart mechanisms, fabricating Medieval Madness conversion without original reference, powder coating rails, re-soldering globe holders.
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product_concern: Tropical climate poses moisture challenges for pinball machines, particularly backglass flaking and cabinet deterioration. Proper storage and air conditioning mitigate issues; salt air near coast accelerates decay.
medium · Rob's discussion of Magnetic Island machines stored near coast experiencing cabinet deterioration; backglass flaking concerns; Terminator 2's underwater submersion damage; machines stored in shed vs. climate-controlled environment.
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Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.138

0:00

The pinball network is online launching the Aussie pinball podcast. Hello and welcome to episode 7 of the Aussie pinball podcast. and playing us in this week is that fantastic aussie american-based country legend keith urban playing walk in the country and although i'm not a country music lover myself this is a favorite of this Episode's guest, Rob Miller from Townsville.

1:00

Rob is the current standing Australian pinball champion, having won the title in 2020, just before the dreaded COVID shutdown.

1:13

In this episode, we'll chat to Rob about life in North Queensland, his pinball hobby, his restorations, his possum finds. And how to clean a machine properly with a garden hose. Hope you enjoy.

1:34

And we have as our guest Rob Miller from Townsville, who is the current, probably the longest reigning Australian champion because we had to skip a year due to that nasty bug that came around. But the current Australian open pinball champion who resides in beautiful sunny hot stinking hot Townsville. How are you Rob? Good thanks Dr John, lovely to talk with you. Yeah I'm pretty happy about that long-running Australian champion title even though I've got it through means other than my own skill I'll still claim it for a couple of years. And somewhere in the background there would be the largest Australian pinball championship trophy ever built because I organised it. Yeah. I'm hoping your children are happy when that thing came home in two or three pieces. Well, I certainly couldn't bring it home on the plane with me, so we had to get Bill, the legend of pinball transport in Australia, to bring it up in his big-ass van because it was the only way it could fit. That's good. That was a fun time. That championship came down to the wire against Juan Peter Watt, who will be also appearing on the podcast in the near future. But, yeah, congratulations for that. But enough about competition because people don't like talking about competition unless you're actually in the competition, which is fair enough. So what can you tell me about Townsville? What is it? How long have you been in Townsville? Are you born and bred or did you migrate north? No, I was born in central west New South Wales in a very cold place called Orange that grows no oranges but plenty of apples and cherries. Grew up on a farm there and went to university in Toowoomba, which is not too far from Brisbane where you are. And then about 20 years ago, moved up to Townsville. I didn't even know where the place was. For people that don't know the geography of Australia, it's very large. We're about 1,200 kilometres north of Brisbane, so in the dry tropics. I remember when I used to, I lived in Townsville for three years in my army days, and I always loved the people from Melbourne, including one Ryan C. He said this to me once. He said, I'm coming up to Brisbane for a week's holiday. I might pop up and see you. They don't quite realise it's actually further from Brisbane than Melbourne is. Yeah, that's exactly right. Townsville is nearly as far. Four hours for us to get to the closest town, pretty much. Cairns is four hours north and Mackay is four hours south. That's major centres, so a fair bit of travel distance. I used to like to think of it as a roulette game, driving on the road between Townsville and Cairns when you see a puddle after a bit of rain. Is it a puddle or is it a four-foot-deep pothole? So it was always an interesting drive north. That's it. And remember that we measure rain in metres up here as well. So, yeah, I think Innisfail north of us gets over four metres of rain per year. Now, Tully's not going to be happy if you say Innisfail's the wettest because I'm sure the Tully locals wee in their rain gauge so they keep the record as Australia's wettest town. What do you think? Yeah, I think there's a fair bit of rivalry that goes on there. But anyway, we get about a metre where we are. So, yeah, we're due for about 300 or 400 millimetres in the next couple of days and then we'll be back to beautiful, fine weather. So you're a country boy. It doesn't sound like a lot of city living going on there. What dragged you from the metropolis that is Toowoomba up to Townsville? Purely employment. I was finishing uni, tried for some work experience, and they said, no, we won't give you work experience, but do you want a job? And it was my best job interview ever. I said yes, and they said, right. Sounds like you're the right person for the job. How much do we have to pay you? And that was the end of the interview for me, and I got the job. Wow. Now, give us a clue. Were you a fry cook at Macca's or what were you doing at uni? No, so I did agricultural engineering at uni and it was a job in the sugarcane industry working with irrigation. So, yes, since then I've been working with sugarcane farmers for the last 20 years. You're a doctor. Some people describe me as a plant doctor. Were you the one that came up with the solution for the cane beetle? I used to work for the organisation that did actually introduce the cane toad to try and eat the cane beetle and it was massively unsuccessful. 1935, 102 cane toads are shipped to Australia to eliminate the beetles that are destroying the sugarcane crops. By the book of things, this dirty fellow is ready to go to work. So three cheers and welcome, brave champion. Now, one of Australia's master strokes was to introduce the cane toad to eat the cane beetle. And, of course, they came over to Australia and discovered they liked to eat everything else rather than the cane beetle and nothing could eat them. So we have a good cane toad problem, especially in North Queensland, but we're all close to WA by now, I think. Yeah, that's correct. I actually had a bus full of school kids. I took around the sugarcane growing area last week and was telling them exactly that story. But I did mention too, not every biological control agent is a failure like that. We've actually got some really good ones. What's some good ones in Australia? There's been one to control the prickly pear and then we're working on some too to control some armyworms in sugarcane and corn crops. Armyworms? Yes. What the heck's an armyworm? A green grub that's about two inches long and can fly 200 kilometres in a night and almost obliterate a corn or sorghum crop in a few days' time. So we've got some native flies that actually come in and lay their egg inside its head and then the little fly larvae hatch and eat the fall armyworm from the inside out. It's really cool. Finally, I'm a beautiful butterfly! that's correct yeah one of the uh biological agents that did work well is the dung beetle i was watching a hard quiz the other night they brought in the dung beetle to help with the dung problem and that has adapted quite well to australia life rolling up the poo-poo around the place and hey who wanted the poo-poo platter Do you have anything to do with dung beetles? Only, apart from the fact that they actually hang outside our back door. I don't think it's because we defecate near the back door. It's simply they get attracted to the light. But yeah, they hiss and carry on and the dog barks and then the kids quite like having a look at them through this green door. Yeah, that's the thing. Living in the tropics, we've got all sorts of creatures. You know, we've got a couple of acres here. We've got cane toads, beautiful big green tree frogs. Snakes get around a little bit. all sorts of the Aussie wildlife that lots of people from overseas get a bit concerned about. Sometimes the best thing to do with a deadly snake in the house is to starve it out. I'll have a look around and then I'll tell the family just how to do that. Yeah, any snakes in the house? Yeah, I have actually had one. I walked out the back door and shut the door and one dropped on my head from there. Myself and the wife and my wife gave a bit of a squeal, but yeah, got rid of him pretty soon after that. Ah, Townsville. Yeah. I always liked going out camping anywhere in Townsville and do you leave a light on overnight coming back and just seeing the variety of stick insects, creepy crawlies that would be attracted to the light. Same as the Miller backyard door. Yeah.

high confidence · Rob's direct statement about the sale and shed construction with his wife.

Chris Somervilleperson

Townsvilleevent/venue

Australian Pinball Championshipevent

Magnetic Islandvenue

venue_signal: Rob's home pinball collection (15 machines in 6x12m rumpus room) functions as a primary tournament venue, hosting events like Summer Slam with 35+ competitors and top players.

high · Rob's description of the games room setup; hosting December Summer Slam event at his place with 35 competitors; multiple other venues (Alex's, Jason's venue) also hosting competitions.

community_signal: Younger generation (Lewis age 11, Farley age 16, Emily age 18) demonstrating competitive pinball talent and winning tournaments against established adult players.

high · Lewis winning the December competition against top-10 Australian players including adult competitors (Rob, Dr John, Jason, Chris Somerville, Dave Berry); Emily placing third at age 18; Farley competing at national level at age 16.

content_signal: Rob's garden hose cleaning video went viral internationally with negative reception due to cultural misunderstanding; overseas audience misread dry Australian humour and didn't account for preceding flood context.

high · Rob's account of posting hose cleaning video, international backlash, clarification that machine had been underwater 4 days during Townsville flood, subsequent successful restoration of Terminator 2.

supply_chain_signal: Townsville has reasonable parts supply through Australian suppliers and US accounts for EM-era parts, though last 12 months saw shipping delays; collectors sometimes fabricate unavailable parts locally.

medium · Rob's mention of accounts with US suppliers, normal shipping rates except recent 12 months, occasional need for creative custom fabrication of parts.

market_signal: Rob liquidated 16 machines to fund lifestyle purchase (wakeboarding boat and shed), suggesting pinball collection can serve as investment asset and be monetized.

high · Rob's explicit statement: 'we decided that it was probably a little bit more family oriented than a whole bunch of pinball machines. So actually sold off quite a a large number of machines, sold about 16 pinballs, and that paid for the boat and the shed.'

design_philosophy: Rob's Medieval Madness conversion approach prioritized learning and enjoyment over speed, parking projects during roadblocks rather than forcing completion under stress.

medium · Rob's statement: 'when I hit a bit of a roadblock, I'd just park it for a few months. So I didn't want it to stress me out. I wanted to really enjoy it... after 18 months or a couple of years.'

competitive_signal: Townsville's main monthly competition is held at an 18+ bar venue, limiting youth participation; separate daytime/early evening events required to include junior players.

high · Rob's note that Lewis cannot attend regular monthly events due to age restriction and school schedule; December Summer Slam held at his home venue on Friday evening to accommodate youth players.