we are. So, uh, show of hands. Let's do some audience participation. Who's been to the homebrew seminar before? Oh, good. More than half of you.
So,
returners,
who in the room can tell me what rule zero is?
Nobody.
You don't talk about fight club.
Rule zero is don't make me make more rules or I'll name them after. So, the purpose of this panel is to showcase these wonderful individuals who did something really hard, which is spend a lot of money building themselves a pinball machine. Um, that will never be done and never be perfect. It's a non-rewarding job. That's why I don't do it. Um, so we're here to admire them. We're going to take some Q&A stuff. Um, but the purpose of this is to get the who, what, when, where, and how, and why of doing homegroup pinball. And so, that's what we're going to talk about. Uh if you want to go on a tangent and talk about something else, I invite you to talk with my friend Dave here. He'll set you up with your own. Uh so just wait and see how you want to talk about.
Exactly. So I got some mythical agenda here that you want to drive forward, you go do that somewhere else. That's not what we're here for. Okay.
Uh so now with that out of the way, um this is what we're going to do. We're going to share the development process. We're going to share the failures. I mean the successes and the failures and uh and how we got here. Uh everyone who brought a custom pin to this event is invited to be at this panel. Uh whether they choose to come up here and humiliate themselves with me or not is entirely up to them. Um
but who in here is thinking of making their own machine?
Uh you don't count.
So next year I want you to bring a flipping machine. It does not even have to be close to finished. Bring me flipping machines. and come talk about them and come join our custom game room. Uh, and that includes rethemes. It is not custom from scratch. We will, you know, we are not discriminating against that. All of it is hard. So, if everybody here can sense and agree to the rule, I won't need to use the uh saw gun on any. [laughter]
ALL RIGHT. LET'S IF I DON'T BREAK.
It's okay. I'LL JUST REPRINT ANOTHER ONE.
[laughter]
ALL RIGHT. SO, WE ARE going to start with a quick round of introductions. If we were more prepared and I had less things to do, there'd be slides with pictures, but none of us got to finish that in the last 24 hours. So, here we are. Uh, we got some live props to show. And, uh, we're going to start with the introductions. So, I want everyone to introduce uh themselves uh, and uh, which machine you brought.
Start.
You can start.
Sure. Brad Leutco. I brought uh The Adventures of Sinbad and Skate Die.
I'm Brian Dowy. I brought Borderlands 2 pinball. [applause]
Aaron Richard, Warhammer 40,000. [applause] All right, give me the next slide, please.
Oh my god. you my All right. So, here are the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions that we're going to use this year. Why is in front of you guys?
It's so far away.
Oh, Jesus.
Do you need my glasses?
Yeah.
Um, and so I don't know if we should let the audience pick
or let you as individuals pick.
What? What do you
What do you guys want? How do you guys want to know what they want to know?
I think I'm going to get the clam strip plate. Why?
Question. [laughter]
We can ask everybody different questions if we like [snorts]
or I can pick
why. So, let's go with a why question.
All right.
Uh why did you decide to build this machine and instead of buying something brand new? um why did you pick this specific theme which is good for a couple of you uh and uh you know what are you thinking pinball still captures their you know excitement
okay you want to start the line
I can start I'll start pick your why
okay the why is the two people that inspired me to do this are sitting in this room right now
okay who are
Mark Seed and and Ryan McQuaid
um so Ryan made Sonic and Mark made Metroid and [applause] and I I played them Fantastic. My first year I came and I had never seen a machine like that. So, of course, I got interested in asking questions like, "What? What is this?" And they're like, "Oh, I I made it." Like, "Okay, what do you mean you made it?" And they're like, "I made this in my house. I built this thing." And it seemed really hard. Yeah, you're allowed to do that. [laughter]
And it seemed like a fun thing to do. Um, it's a lot of a ch it's a ton of challenge. And I I like challenge and I like mechanical things. I like programming. I like pinball. And you know, lo and behold, now there's a machine sitting here. It's basically the whole thing in a nutshell. That's where it comes from.
Sounds like a good why to me. In the corporate world, you know, you're supposed
This is all about Mark. Mark, this is your fault. It's all your fault.
Why is Mark not hosting this panel?
I don't know.
All right. Pa, why
for me? I started hanging out with uh Lynn. Uh we all know him as Lynn John Manuelian. Um about a decade ago. I had uh you know seen Haunted Antonio Cruz and a couple other things in his uh in his mad uh mad uh garage, Mad Scientist garage. Um and then uh helped him out on a a uh a video game that he put on Steam. And after that, we sat down. He was like, "Mike, you help me out. let's make a game together. And I'm like, okay. He's like, like do you I want you to design it. And I'm like, all right. And then he's like, you can have one off. And I'm like, I don't want that. Like I want to make something that can be produced. So that's really what uh a little bit more than just making one thing and just being like, oh, I'm proud of this. I want to do this. Like this is a cool industry. So, you know, why not get a chance, take it.
Sound like a good one to me.
All right. Uh, so I've been coming
I don't have favorite children everybody but sorry Aaron Borderlands 2 is my favorite game. [laughter] Uh, so I've been coming to Pentastic uh for many years now and every time I come I play the games like, "Oh man, wouldn't it be cool if it could just do this or wouldn't it be cool if it could do that?" And so the idea is just sort of built and built and built. Uh, you know, seeing Metroid, seeing uh Sonic come together, it's like, "Wow, like you you can like a human being is capable of doing this. Like uh maybe we could do it." And so the sort of culminating idea was this idea for a video game that had increasing difficulty levels. And so I wanted a play field that could get steeper or shallower. And in starting to think that through, I was like, well, you know, for one actuator I can do one, but if I have three actuators, I can do more stuff for three times as much cost and complexity. And that weekend uh that I was at Fantastic, I'm a dork. So I had three actuators in my house already. And we bolted to a piece of plywood. We stuck a piece of cardboard on top. I got an RC plane controller. And in like two hours, we had a thing moving. We put a ball on top. And I was like is it fun? It's fun. [laughter] And from there uh started the the you know the journey um you know three years. It was here last year. It wasn't tilting with the first two days because we had a game glitch code. It was looking for Wi-Fi and it didn't have Wi-Fi and we didn't know there was a bug in the Arduino. Uh so it's a little smoother this year. Uh, there's a new mech that's supposed to be working perfectly and as is Murphy's law and as is Pinball, it will never work perfectly, especially when you think it will. Uh, so after this show, we'll go and figure out how to get that working so it works the rest of the show. Just like last year, we got it fixed and got it working for the rest of the show.
And the side benefit of these linear actuators, this is what fascinates me, is you don't have to take the glass off to get a stuck ball out anymore,
right? You just [laughter] playfield moves and it's kind of like almost on springs when you wiggle it when it's sitting there.
And also it's as far as I know probably the first self-leveling self-pitching playfield in a pinball machine has ever been made.
Sure. If one were to write that code for it. [laughter]
Well, it has the capability. It's a feature that you need to charge for
potential. Ladies and gentlemen,
it's on the back.
Yeah.
Anyone want to take a Jira ticket? [laughter] How many points is that you're taking?
Yeah.
All right. Why you got two pins with us this year?
Yes, I do. Why? Well, I guess to back up, I've had electronics as a hobby since a real young age, like 10 years old. My uncle was a electronics tech in the Navy. And um yeah, I decided at an early age I wanted to know how to build video game hardware. That was what was the most interesting thing. So, I kind of, you know, went in that direction of digital logic and all that. I realized, hey, I can I know how these pinball machines work. All I just have to fire a coil or read a switch or turn a light on and there you go. But I also realized it's a lot cheaper to build electronics than to buy something. When I was a kid, I had no money. So, you know, build it all myself. You find some junk VCRs, take them apart, use the parts, make something new, make guitar pedals and things like that.
So, I found out that you can buy uh junk playfields for very, very cheap compared to the actual game. A lot of games that, hey, that's great, but I wouldn't really want taking up space in my house forever, but oh, I can swap four playfields in. Sure. So, that's kind of how I got there. Uh, I think there was a there was a show I went to, the York show. There was a game that was a ballet night rider cabinet with a stern nougat playfield and a blackjack back glass. [clears throat] And I looked at that and I said, "Oh, these parts are all interchangeable." So, I just went wild from there.
Excellent. Excellent. All right.
Did we get the why from everybody? Does anybody have any follow-up why questions?
You can't ask anything if you want. No,
you guys covered your wise. Check marks. We should put I should have printed bingo cards to be a honest gold stars. Yep.
Gold stars. And all right, so where do we want to go from here? Why not where?
Let's go to where? And the examples of where questions.
They just took off my screen while I was trying to read my uh where [clears throat] did you build it? Did you do it at home? Did you do it at a maker space? Someone please say they did it at a maker space. Actually, well, I already know that. We can pretend.
Uh, you know, did you buy local? Did you buy online? Did you salvage parts as you were just saying? Um, and uh, you know, where can people see this other than here? Do you guys have any social media presence? Do you stick it on location anywhere? Uh, go to any other shows. So, those are the those are our wear examples. You can feel free to expand. And no, you're going last.
Okay.
I'm going to make him go first.
All right. The wear I built it in my garage.
Now, did you already have a workshop in your garage or
Well, yeah. I kind of put a corner in there when I Yeah. put together. Actually, I I started it at my apartment, then I moved in the garage when I bought a house. But, uh, my games are on location. Sometimes they're either at the Glenside Machine Shop in Center City, Glennside, PA, or at the uh, Delaware Pinball Collective.
Excellent.
All right.
Where? So, my game was built in my basement. Uh, if you get into pinball, you'll find that it just consumes all flat surfaces, all space you have. You should buy every tool you can think of or borrow them. You should never ever put them away because the second you put it away, you're going to need it again. Uh, so I have like four desks in my basement that are all covered in pinball things. Uh, at the the ceremony is at the end of a show, I then get to clean my basement and my wife is really happy until the next show. Um, mine has not been on location yet. Uh, so you can come visit it in my basement or it's went to Chicago Expo last year. It's planning to go again this year. And
woohoo.
Uh, at some point in time I'll get it to be reliable enough and happy enough that I'd love to stick it somewhere for a little while. Maybe down at EMP or one of these other little little places people can go and get their hands on it. But
I'll just Yeah, build it into the back of a car and just like pull up at Target and let people play.
Yeah, we definitely
I will um I will I'll I'll tell you about my retirement idea later.
Okay.
Hey, I mean it fits in the back of my Ford Flex if I take the head off. So, we'll just like, you know,
my my dream is my dream is to sell the house and travel around the world in a giant million dollar motor home bus with slide outs underneath for my pinball machine. and and then I'd have to never have to level them again because I just level the the rig every
We'll work on the IP for the
um where well think we can kind of piggyback from what I said before Lynn's garage um garage
Lynn's warehouse which is [laughter] essentially a pinballer maker
space garage ago it was a garage paper plastic wood uh parts lying around. I found some at actually found a good amount of parts at uh this one of the early uh uh flea markets for Pentastic, one of the first Pentastics. Um just in and around ripping them off other uh playfields where not really working and whatnot. Uh kind of similar to, you know, finding stuff that's junk. Um in fact, a uh if you see my game, it's got a EM score reel that's made it look like it's you're getting tickets, right? Um, and uh I ripped that off. I bought a [ __ ] junked uh excuse my language, a junked uh back of an EM with a bunch of score reels on it. And then there you go. Be resourceful, you know. Um, where else? I mean, now it's being worked on at uh at Lynn's uh warehouse, just some sort of a maker space.
It's a pinball maker space. Now Lynn has got his own seminar. Lynn, you brought that six machines. Five, six.
Six.
Six.
Oh, yes. because circus um and and they are doing a seminar that starts immediately after this one. Um I would say it's 3:30, but you know, we'll see what you know, what schedule looks like.
And where can you find King of the Arcade? Well, uh it travels around a little bit. A lot of times I'll be working at it with uh with Lynn help helping him out.
Find it disassembled in my shop usually [laughter]
sometimes. No, but uh but then I've I've had it over at the pin the Southern New Hampshire Pinball Club in Nashville, New Hampshire, which um definitely can check that out at some point. I'll definitely have that back there. Um and then uh yeah, if you can come over my place when I'm testing it and there you go. It's pretty much where. All right. Um so because uh this is a Warhammer machine, this machine was built in a dark, dingy basement just like Warhammer if you're familiar with it. Um, so two locations at the basement of my house, uh, and also a bit at Lynn's place as well because, um, Lynn helps everyone. He's a fantastic soul. [laughter]
We have
Can I see the the where?
Uh, where did you get?
Yeah. Can you Can you push my slide up to full screen, please?
So, those two locations um, I source components um, both from Marco Pinball and Pinball Life. Those like my main two sources. Sometimes the internet, sometimes eBay has deals. you find stuff, weird stuff like kicking targets and and unique uh assemblies that you can't normally find anywhere else. So, do scour the net. Um there's tons of different sales people out there. You just got to dig for it. It's not
even our secret.
Okay. Okay. [laughter]
Um and then where you can uh play this, if you want to play this, this is eventually going to be in Hometown Arcade in Norwood, Massachusetts. Um
cool.
Uh I'll have this machine for play um somewhere. We're going to sneak it somewhere in the lineup. They've got like 16 games, so they're pretty much jammed in there, but um we'll work it out. So, that's it.
Excellent. So, my my next question uh following up on this is coin doors.
Okay.
Did all of you put coin doors in your machines?
Yes.
Why?
It was there when I bought the cabinet.
That's the number one answer.
It's cuz you buy a cabinet that already has it in there.
Yeah.
But if you're never going to put the machine on location, why do you need the coin door?
So, you can get
Well, you could put something else there. It's so satisfying to open and fiddle with.
Or is it the nostalgia of wanting coin mechs on it? [laughter]
Mine doesn't have coin mechs because the playfield will smash them. So I have a door [laughter] and I have a slot
and there are no coin mechs. So they just fall on the bottom now,
right? Because you don't need the coin mech because you're never going to put it on.
It's such a nice door.
So it's it's one of these things where I've seen people spend hundreds of dollars on coin doors with coin mess for a homebrew machine.
I I can also there's one more reason mine has one. My controller has magnets in it and I can stick it to the coin door when I'm servicing the game. So that's why it'll stay there.
That's a good point.
Okay. Did Did uh where where were we? Where? Did everybody get a good where? Did we answer the where question?
Can I can I answer one more? Um eventually I don't know.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Can I
stick where there kid? Okay. Yeah. EMP. They're going to have a home room uh room eventually and uh that will be there too. Huh? a home room.
Did I say home room? It's just a It's just a closet. You could find it. [laughter] Just gonna
All right. So, uh, when this is the this is the when did you start question, but also uh when do you feel this thing's ever going to be truly finished? And, um, you know, when did you first get into pinball and tinkering with these damn things and to actually want to do this besides getting inspired? Now, who wants to go first? Someone in the middle this time. I I'll go. There you go. You're welcome.
Put it back up for one more second. I got to read them again.
Uh so when uh I got into pinball when I was
You don't have to answer all the questions. You can just pick.
Um
uh I had I had a flash that I had in high school. I didn't have pinball for a long time and then maybe 15 years ago or something. My wife found uh a game on the side of the road that someone was getting rid of and and convinced them to help her get it in the car. Brought it home and I was told it didn't work. And I and I was an old what's the um the ski game the home home version ski game I forget who it's by. Anyway, uh all I need to have was a reset button done and so we had our first game back in the house and then it's kind of gone from there. Um when for timing I'm uh somewhere in like the two to 2500 hours on the game at this point in time. They I I'd say if you have a if you want to get into it and you've got people that are excited to help you, then by all means take their help. Um, a lot of the game I did myself, uh, Aaron here helped, John helped. I've got some people doing coding for me. Uh, my motion control system was done by my buddy Craig. Um, but the mechanics, the art, the graphics, like all that stuff, it just it sort of all adds up. Um, it's it's fun. It's challenging, but to kind of see it come together is exciting. It's exciting to bring it to the shows. And as far as being done, uh I wanted I the next big thing to do is to do Playfield art and then get a new Playfield cut and do and then swap everything to the new Playfield. That will hopefully signify that I'm like done with it. Uh but it's a big step and it's going to cost a decent amount of money.
So I wanted to get uh get it to a few shows, get people playing it, see the challenges, figure out how I want to improve the game, uh add new mechs. I don't mind taking a whole saw to this playfield uh like I did four weeks ago and then putting a new feature in, but once I get it uh printed and clear coated, I'm pretty sure I won't want to do that again.
So, that'll mark my kind of done moment.
Out of whitewood to the final print.
Yeah,
we're doing the wanking the
Yeah. Do you need to see the slot?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Sinbad Sinbad was originally a Cleopatra that I had
restored. It had a melted transformer. So, I converted it all the switching power supplies and only three voltages, all that kind of stuff. Then, uh, so I spent about two months doing that in 2022. 2023 the w sometime in the winter I came across a sinbad with a rust with a really rusty cabinet for like 200 bucks. So I just took the playfield out and dropped it in there. Put the uh stuff in the back of it. Reprogrammed it. I think I spent about two or three months doing that. And then uh skate or die. I spent about two months off and on two months putting the playfield back together because it was pretty much not populated. Um, but the rest of it I put it together over a month. I got it flipping the Tuesday before last. Fantastic. So, I've just been working on mainly code for the past year on that.
Deadlines. Deadlines often make it happen. And this is what I'm going to say to you people that I said bring me a flipping pin. Set a deadline on it. You know, like you're going to bring it here next year and and do this cuz if you don't, you're going to be like me and it's just never going to get done.
It's what I did two years ago.
Yeah. Well, and and for a couple of you, I've called you out and go, "No, you're bringing me a pin next year." Um,
is that how I got here?
That's actually how you got here.
I've apologized to your wife a dozen times already. She's lovely. Um, [clears throat] Aaron, you were already like on the fence. It's just you needed a deadline. So, deadlines are kind of important to drive the win.
I need a kick in the ass is what I need.
You need to be reminded how hard this is.
Yes.
And it's okay to fail because you're going to because that's pinball. You always drain.
Emily, you got a question? Go ahead.
For for more this more for uh the game like when you're designing um how much does like the IP uh for your design process versus I just want this shot. I like this or I like this and screw the IP to that point, you know?
Yeah, that that's
what you consider higher.
That's a great question.
Can I answer that?
Yeah. Well, because you you actually specifically don't have a defined IP. These two guys have a defined IP, but in your case, yes, you should take this question because I'm interested to hear what you have. So, a lot of times people will just start, you know, drilling into a play field and hope that something comes from it. And it usually does. It's like, oh, you know, this looks good for Goonies or this and that. You know, you never know what it could uh what it could be. Um, for me, I've always had a had a I don't know. I've always been into uh making your own thing, right? So, I had the idea of King of the Arcade like an AR like a a table that was that's in an arcade and you're playing in an arcade like in within the whole thing very meta you know I was very hip hip at that time uh playing around with that but um then those type of things when for me when I had that little peak of inspiration I'm like well I'm really a huge fan of theme integration so if I'm in an arcade Then why am I shooting this? Why am I going to here? Oh, this is fun. I want to make the game fun, but I still have some sort of like I want it to make sense, too. There's you, you know, we see games out there where it's just kind of like, okay, the the maybe a a design like a a theme was just kind of plopped on. There's a mixture of both. I would say I don't think everybody has that definitive um saying like yep I want to have everything al together put artwork into it make sure it's 100% theme integration some people don't work that way that's how I work
so for you guys who followed a very and I worked in video games for a while and uh when you're dealing with a a brand asset you really focus on that now you two uh border well video games wonderfully borderlands too. I mean, you had all sorts of beautiful assets and things to choose from.
For me, uh, part of the thing with like all these building ideas in my head over the years was these cute little mechanisms. Like, I'm a big fan of like physics and and interacting with real, you know, real toys. So, like there's a a captive ball helix and there's a gravity ramp and there's a a cycling ball lock and so all these little mechanisms were ideas and it was like, let me build these little versions and make sure they work and then how do I fit them in the game? And then Borderlands was chosen as a theme. I wanted a video game. It was gonna be Final Fantasy 7. Uh Borderlands or um uh Bioshock was the other one.
That would be
And so that'll be cool.
Next game. Next game.
Borderlands was chosen because in soouththing the internet, I found uh someone who had done a YouTube video with every single uh like scene in the game in one shot in high depth. and I was able to download it. And then I found another person that stripped every audio asset, put it in a zip file that was in a folder structure by character and level. And I was like, "Wow, that's it. We're doing Borderlands." Uh, so it was a lot of, you know, mechanism design first, laying out the playfield, and then going through the story mode and trying to get the assets and the theme to sort of lay over top and making the most sense. So, like you find Tiny Tina uh in the game, you're delivering, you're you're running around for her to get stuff, so you do the orbits and then she gives you two bombs to bring to the train track. So, you do the two ramp shots. Uh you have to take the things back to her garage, so you shoot the scoop. So, it in mine it works in some cases. In others, it's just like you hit the thing, the stuff happens because it it kind of works, it kind of doesn't.
Yeah. And in your integration, what you were if you were here last year, you can also see the video on on the YouTube channel from last year. had one of the the ball lock mechanism that you 3D printed and all of that and you don't get to see the detail uh from a foot away even under glass where it's on the playfield unless you really look at it. Um if you're curious me we'll take the glass off.
There's a person who's a Borderlands super nut for a while there. I look at that and I go exactly I know exactly where that is in the game. I know where you got the inspiration from that. So I the theme integration there is just wonderful. And same with yours. Um I'm I'm not a miniature model painter. I don't know if anybody else in here is. So, I never got into actually playing Warhammer and those things, but your integration is is true to life as well.
Yeah. And you don't have to really play the game. Like, I am I'm I'm painter, but I don't play tabletop. I paint and I read. I like I like the story. Um, and so that's kind of where the whole thing came from because I was like, "Oh, I could really go like ham on on this whole thing and just pull whatever I want and shove it into the game and it'll work." See, like I I went with going or I went with um designing stuff first before I kind of started applying like actual integration or IP to my shots and my layout.
Great question. Great question.
Especially especially to the people that are up here today. Really applicable a couple times. Um did everybody get to answer their when?
No, you did not. We skipped you. We got an answer from you. You started yours eight years ago. Your
All right. So, Aaron, when did you start? Um, I' I'd say like officially I started like two years ago. Um,
2022 2023.
Yeah. I brought it to This is like my third Fantastic, but my first show.
It just flipped.
It flipped.
It just flipped. Um,
it flipped. You made the deadline and it flipped. Yes. Achievement unlocked, my friend.
Yes. And I You
got a flip and pin.
And I built my own cabinet. Um, which is incredibly hard to do. Um, but it's far easier to just buy one. Um,
so that's why I have this. Um [laughter] um but like my I guess you could say my when of when I got bit by the the pinball bug. Yeah. Um I was seven and I I think I was seven. Um my mom bought me this little tiny plastic like Jurassic Park Lost World pinball machine that was like uh spring powered and you like click it and it had like four or five pot bumpers in it and like couple rollover lanes. I loved that toy. I played it until it broke and then she bought me another one to replace it because I love that thing and it's like pinball's always been kind of part of my life. And I remember we went down to the Poconos's uh for break and we went to like an actual arcade and I had never seen a legitimate pinball machine before and there was a South Park pinball machine and I knew about South Park and cuz mom did not like South Park but I [laughter] was with my dad and we got in front of that game and I lost my mind. It was a pinball machine that flipped and made Bart noises and it was awesome. [laughter] And ever since then, I have loved pinball truly to my soul. So that's where I started.
There we go.
So my when was two years ago and I mean it's been a hell of a progress or I mean I I if you guys were here uh last year, this game was different. This layout was not the same. And so I ripped my entire layout and I redid it what uh to what it is today. I took everything I didn't like in the game and redesigned and now I actually like it.
Okay. So, last last one question that I've I've always wanted to get out of everybody is is like when is it finished, right? And that's when is yours going to be finished? When are you going to start super gluing miniature self-painted miniatures on this thing and stop worrying about geometry and other stuff? When is that point going to happen?
Okay. Um
and when is done?
When when is done? Done is when
done is when you can go all the way with the code. You can go all the way to the wizard mode and start back at the beginning. Like you've done you've done a wizard mode. Once that is fully progressible where you can go through each mode, do the entire thing, see all all the, you know, uh, features of the game and get back to the start, that's done. That's truly done for me.
Okay. Well, so you have higher standards than the pinball manufacturers in the world. [laughter]
Sorry, I I had to.
Bing bing. [laughter]
Okay, so we've done who, what, when, where, why, how. You have a question. Uh, can we get you to a microphone? you're all the way back there and I'm never going to hear you on the
Well, we need it for the stream and for the recording as well, if you don't mind. So, he's gonna hand you a microphone and point a camera in your face. So, just give it one second.
Um, so my question is, are any of you guys designing your your playfield layout by hand and cutting it by hand or you're all using CAD and software to do that?
Okay, great. So,
and if you're doing it by hand, how how are you doing it from version to version? All right. So, a nuts andbolts question about, you know, how are you guys uh screwing, you know, you sitting here with a pen and paper and and uh you know, marking out the playfield and hitting it with a big Forester bit or are you sticking it on a machine? And the answer is yes.
Yeah.
Uh you you I started with a a quarter sheet of plywood I got from Home Depot. Uh I got some cardboard and a hot glue gun and I just started going to town. Uh that eventually evolved into some laser cut pieces of acrylic to make it a little more robust. And then at some point in time I started doing CAD and I was getting really pissed off that the CAD didn't match the thing on my table anymore. And so it was got to the point that was like okay clean slate cut rev 2 and then so it started as A and then it converted to B for me.
I guess for me it's um very similar. I mean, that's kind of how you start when it comes to home brew. You have to make something like that Frankenstein a piece of plywood just to see like, oh, I like this. I like that. I like this. Well, now let's let's hook it up to get it flipping. This is fun. Let's change this. Let's do that. Um, I guess it it's just in progression. Um, really, it wasn't until you had Lynn had a uh you made your own CNC router when we were able to get what? I I bought it off of Craigslist a Craigslist special
which means he rebuilt a CNC router. Anyways, so um then we're able to move on to the next step really for me it was in my uh uh what is it exploration of of this field it was really a matter of waiting having that right uh uh moment taking that moment and then moving forward. Marin. Um, when I started, I had an initial design in mind and once you start actually drilling and making holes in your playfield, you realize that certain things might not truly work for you. Um, from the organic standpoint because we have like dreams and wishes of what we want to try and make a ball do and sometimes the ball don't do it. Um, so you just you you will iterate on your pro on your process and you a good thing to do is draw stuff out.
Uh, I've been here and just had an an idea and I just started drawing. Just start drawing and doing uh different shapes and different designs like the crossing shots like that was by happen stanture. I was like maybe I could make it do that and it kind of evolves on its own. You you will snowball. you will, you know, um suffer and and things will fail, but it's part of the process. So, I would I would say start organically um before you go to CAD because CAD's it's not it's not a bad place to start. CAD can be awesome because you can iterate really quickly. You can move stuff over, you shift things around, but sometimes you don't want to put everything in CAD. Sometimes you just need to make it quick and dirty and just like duct tape something to playfield. So, try what feels best for you. Um, but for me, I would say duct tape, cardboard, and uh, go to town.
Yeah.
And and that's basically the sentiment that we've heard from everybody who's been on the panels for the last,
I don't know, five, six years.
Um, I mean, you you started in VPX, uh, you know, getting a fun shooter, as you like to say, something that was fun to flip on on a computer before you went to physical media. I I know you've done both.
Yeah. These days, I only I go straight CAD.
Yeah. Well, now, yes.
Yeah. That way if if I a shot doesn't work quite right, I don't need to figure out how to make it later on. I can just say, "Oh, I need to move it over quarter of an inch for this thing." And then just shift the dimple and poof, it's ready for the next.
And and Mark, you I know ended up catting out a play uh you know, CNCing out a playfold over at the Worcester maker space for the one that's in Metroid now. But how did you start with Metro?
And just marked and marked drilling and cutting. I put an orbit in first and then flipped it and just went the orbit for like an hour and a half. This is fun. [laughter]
I remember just walking into your basement and you're just like, "Mike, look what I did." It just did answer. Did everybody get a chance to answer this? I'll add one more second just to say uh you can like go to Home Depot tomorrow and you can buy a sheet of plywood and get some cardboard. And those really skinny one meter uh rulers are fantastic for doing orbits. You don't even need like flippers. You can just like sling a ball around. Oh yeah.
And it's super fun. And that could happen tomorrow for like $50, right? So if you think it's going to be fun, just go do it, right?
But keep in mind, paper and more solid things like metal and plastic, they do a little differently. They don't they move around a little bit. Keep that in mind. That's a very good little uh little tip.
Great question. Did everything get answered there? Yes.
Okay. Wonderful. Uh yeah, go ahead. What is the plywood using?
What's the thickness of plywood that we're using? We're going to moderate this one. It is half inch sanded Baltic birch. That is the only thing you should buy. Seven or nine ply. That's it. I'm leaving. Done.
If you buy 3/4 ply and then you get a bunch of standard mechanisms from the internet, you will find that you need to pocket the back of all of them to get the thickness to be correct. So, don't do that.
Just So, that's it. That's it.
Make it thick.
Just get that
half inch.
Half inch. That's it.
Excellent.
Okay. I'm sorry. It's cheaper than 3/4, too.
Yes.
Emily, you had a question.
I used some uh aluminum L channel and strapped it to the bottom of mine to get it to be stiff while I was in the debug mode.
Cool.
Once you guys put it in cat and get an output, just say like a field like this. Yes. What you said, are you afraid to
go in there like a cat? You don't cat everything to the next cat. You find you have to move something which is really
I need the shot to work now.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I' I've put stuff in here like this morning I put a peg uh in the uh near the roller lanes because it kept getting stuck. I was like, "All right, cool. Just put it in. No problem."
The show is great for that.
Does not matter. Just Just do it.
Do you have a list to go back and add to your cat later?
No.
Did you have any answers to those questions? Because we did skip you on one of them.
Oh, sorry about But um
that's my job is to that's why I did it this way this time is to make sure that everybody gets their bingo cards.
So on a similar route um [clears throat]
boards I'm an electronics guy. I've got a bunch of custom designs. I'll do my prototypes on perf board pointto-point wiring. My first game rock lives the lamp driver board in that it's like 56 discrete outputs. I did it all by hand. I said I'm never going to do that again. That's why skater die doesn't have a lamp board in it because I didn't learn the CAD to make the board. [laughter]
So, so that's a great question. We've and this is the the problem with the homebrew panels is because we we feed off of the community that's here uh and and I've talked to most of you before. So, those who haven't been here, why don't we go do the quick question of what hardware platforms you're using and then go ahead Aaron. Fast
Yeah, fast pinball.
Fast is on the screen. Mission Pinball Framework
and Mission Pinball Framework are the two pieces of software that I use.
Uh, fast
and
and uh well code uh
Oh, you use Lindall, right?
Lot linity. I don't
Unity as well as uh yeah, the pinball augmented reality system lens system.
So, uh Lynn, is your augmented reality system your Lindball to
to Unity? Right.
Yeah. So Unity is the game engine that I use with ball in that control everything. So you don't have to worry about players or ball updates or score or anything.
Uh mine's on cobra pin with mission pinball framework.
All right. So Sinbad is running a Lizzy one board in slave mode and uh skater die has an APC board. APC is a Williams board and I'm running a Valley Playfield on it. To do that, I had to uh plug the switch matrix in backwards and I made some adapter harnesses for the solenoids.
So, yeah, that that exact board was running in my millionaire for a time.
Oh, wow. I remember my game.
But not everyone who uh builds a homebrew pinball needs to be an electrical engineer is is is the point, right? You don't have to make your own PCBs. You don't have to solder your own boards. You can buy all of this stuff. You don't have to wrestle. You can, by the way, wrestle with Raspberry Pies and and SB chips and everything else under the sun, uh, which I do for other hobbies, but for this, you can buy off-the-shelf hardware that other people know that there's a community. There are forums, there are great, uh, Facebook groups. Uh, Lynn's going to, you know, talk about his hardware a little bit, I think.
Sure. Okay. It's up to you. Um, let's play some pinball. Let's go through your machine. Do it. All right. Any other questions while we get that moving? Oh, all right. You too. Why don't we take you now? Let me let me get you a microphone. Run. This is supposed to be the distraction so we look prepared.
Further back.
All right. What's your volume set on this? I don't
right there. The guy black shirt. um for starting off should I or should I start with um like having a other machine and just updating a certain part in it?
You can do that. Some people do start with a with an already machine. Some people unscrew things, move it around to choose things. You can pick pick a pieces from other games to do that or you can start from scratch. It's really up to how you want to do it.
Hey, thank you.
You're welcome. Yeah.
So, where are you from?
Uh, San Diego.
Oh, California. Well,
I WAS HOPING I COULD FIND SOMEONE who lived in your area. Have a parent talk to this person to help you out, but
uh I'm going to have to leverage other people. I don't know anyone in San Diego.
You moved to Nashville, too.
No one wants to move to You want to buy [laughter] my house? You can move to Nasha. Um, San Diego to Nashville is a tough cell.
All right, you can switch off that camera. Thank you. And great questions. Yeah. Yeah. Just just try to break something. Jump in it. Make sure your parents are fine first, but you know, jump into it. Try to break it. I saw another question somewhere.
Where was that one? It wasn't you guy. It was somebody else.
There he is.
Oh, Derek.
Derek.
Yeah. You want to run a mic to Derek?
Derek, do you want to scream? It's your choice.
B. Question for Aaron. um for
those 3D prints are pretty incredible. Uh is it one print or is it multiple prints that lock into each other?
Um for which uh which one specifically?
Uh we'll say the topper topper.
So the topper is not made by me. Um this is an STL file by a dude named Alex Geek Workshop. Um and he makes Warhammer um STLs in like full size. Um, so you can get an STL for like 30 bucks. Um, and the whole thing's motorized. He's like, he's done on so much work for you. You just buy the thing, print it, and I was like, that would look great on top of a Warhammer pinball machine. So, I bought one and I made one, and now it's here.
The the skull as well was one print.
The skull is uh four different pieces, all glued together. That is actually bolted together with um metric bolts and they Yeah, it's just nut and and bolt, and they just go right together. How many of these?
Oh god. I think this is about probably close to 20 um chopped up. And so it's like 20 individual prints. It's about 45 hours to print one of those on a fast printer.
Like a good printer, it takes about 45 hours to do that. And also 3 kg of filament.
That seems quick.
That's quick.
Yeah. I mean for that much,
right? That's wild.
Yeah.
Any other question? Go ahead. Yeah.
What do you think was the biggest obstacle?
All right. For everybody, let's start. I gave you back this. Mike, we'll start with you. What was your biggest obstacle?
Oh god. The biggest obstacle.
Great question.
Oh, it's it's it's definitely layout. Layout is deciding on layout. Making decisions is an incredibly difficult thing and you have to go with your gut. You if you're if you do pick something, just go with it for the time being. It's of course it's not set in stone. Just try. That's all. That's all I can tell you. Just try because it's gonna be really hard. But um
that's that's great advice.
That's how I got here.
Yeah. Perfection is the enemy of good enough when it comes to this.
Truly.
So time.
Yeah.
Really cuz you know we all have jobs. We all have day jobs. We all have families. Uh things happen in life. It makes it hard to do this. But when you find the time and you're able and you are uh you're motivated um you get something done. Yeah.
Uh getting the you know pulling together all the different skill sets to do a pinball machine, right? So there's electrical, there's software, there's mechanical, there's video, there's art, there's there's all sorts of stuff you need to do. And so you know one option is you go spend a lot of time learning new skills. The other option is you look around and make friends. And so it's you will definitely find a combination of the two. So, I, you know, am not a coder, but I can code a new game now, right? And so, I learned from Aaron. I learned from my friend Craig. Uh, I learned from Ernie Silverberg, who runs Trident. And and so there's people in the community that will support you. And eventually, like, you're like, "Oh, look. I I did a mode on and it just booted. Oh, wow. I don't have to debug it for four hours and call three people." Like, that's exciting.
You still call me in the middle of the night sometimes.
You would have been [laughter] at 10. I call Ernie in the middle of the night.
So, Brian, what you're saying is is it takes a village and sometimes you're the village idiot.
Yeah. And then then you grow out of that role eventually.
Yes.
The village where you do something pretty good once in a while, right? Good at being an idiot. Better lucky than [laughter] good.
And do you want to answer?
Yeah. Yeah. I guess for what I do, the biggest challenge is getting the parts in the first place. I can't just go online and buy a fully populated skateball playfield without paying an arm and a leg CPR or whatever. But
to get these playfields, I have to watch pinside threads for a show by sell like a hawk and you need to make a decision as soon as you see it. Do I want to do this or not?
That skateball playfield, there was 10 people behind me. It's the other
10 like 10 pe seriously 10 people reached out for
125 bucks.
Wow.
That is a [laughter] great area. That is a great answer to the barrier to to engagement and execution on this because uh that's part of my thing. I know if I jump knee deep into this and start doing this, as people who have been in my home or have lived with me in the past know that there are just sterilite upon sterilite containers all over the house full of parts and and knowing that you have to jump on things that you might eventually need someday that are just going to sit there and not gather dust but not make any money or get any reward, it makes it difficult. So
a great one of the whole parts thing. So it hopefully next year. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop.
You will bring me a flipping pinball machine next year.
That's fine.
All right, we got one commitment. We're going to hold them to it.
Any Anybody else? Anybody else on the fence that just needs someone to be mean and enforce a deadline in public over the internet?
Who wants a nudge?
Will yell at me?
I'll yell at you. I will. Absolutely. I'll hold you deadline. Yeah.
Oh, good.
Yeah, I'll make Sam do it.
What are you building?
Uh, I have a couple ideas. I mess around with game design
all right that's happening. That's one. That's you're going to have something for me next year. You're going to sit up here. That's two. And I'm going to hold you to that. You know that. Anyone else?
Anyone else want to be volunteers?
What are you going to do? You have a question?
Yeah. So, there was one mention of repurposing material, uh, using a yard stick as a ball guide.
Yeah.
Do each of you have any other ideas? Certainly can be very helpful to to just repurpose something and a lot cheaper in a lot of cases.
Paper, painters tape, uh, pieces of of little blocks, whatever you can find. Have a have a pinball, throw it.
What's the the white board? The white. It's like the flexible white
foam core. Yes,
core.
Anything that you can put on a plywood and just place, glue down,
nail down, all that kind of stuff. Just get to it.
If if if you have access to a 3D printer and you know how to create your own CAD, it's really good. So, if you look at Borderlands, almost everything you see, the entire playfield is 3D printed. It's PLA. It holds up really good. It's shocking. I'm jinxing myself, I'm sure. Um, there's some tricks I do where I'll embed M4 screws in areas where the the ball is going to hit a lot,
but like I can't believe how well it's holding up and and that opens the door for anything.
And then uh another quick question, above and beyond what's built in Mission Pinball Framework with config files,
at what point do you actually have to develop custom code to make this work? It depends if you want to live outside the box or not. [laughter]
So if you want to have a tilting playfield, you're going to live outside the box. Uh but everything else is in is in Mission Pinball Framework.
So most modes that you think of
Yeah. Everything
modes, multiballs, light shows, um machine and game configuration variables are all stored in MPF for you. If you want to do something custom,
sorry,
video sequences. Yeah. Like like everything's in Mission PL framework. However, there is that door. If you want to step through it, there is a way to do custom code and get down to like lower level programming to do it. You can do it.
Don't touch the third rail.
Don't touch the third rail.
But it's fun.
It's fun. It tastes good when you do it. All right, start this. We're going to we're going to show some pinball. Everybody wants to play pinball. All of these machines that they've talked about are over in the custom game room. Um, and uh, we're
Well, you know, if you don't want to play cuz you don't want me calling out how bad your playing skills are, we can always have Ryan do it cuz he show everybody up.
No, it's fine. So, just
Yeah. Why don't you talk about what you did?
You did it earlier, right?
Shoot around.
Get a [laughter] stucky in front of everybody.
Oh, man.
At least it's not making the pot.
Are they in my tool box?
On top of the tool box.
Do you need a magnet? I'll grab it right now. Okay. All right.
Well, the first flip. I love it. [applause]
The best [cheering] laid plans.
We're gonna do this to fill some time and take some more questions and then you know he just screws it up.
Love you.
Another question for you.
We got a question.
How do you deal with property if you're not?
So, you know, I I'll I'll answer this partly for from past experiences and things. Uh I I was I worked for Warner Brothers for a while. Some companies are perfectly fine with people doing um fan art, fan projects, as long as they're never going to be commercially sold. You actually don't Sony uh for instance with with Sonic.
Sony uh Sega, sorry.
Sony,
didn't SOE own didn't SOE own Sonic for a little while?
Mine owned the Sonic for a little while, but you're right. Sega Sega has a Ryan Policky.
Yeah.
Just don't sell it. Don't don't make any production. uh [clears throat] other companies uh Disney uh are not so nice about uh you know people's passion projects and things. Uh just don't put the word Disney on it and you should be fine.
Uh I don't know what I 2K Take 2 owns Borderlands so I don't know what they're so yeah I I I've chosen not to poke the bear. I've thought about like reaching out because they're pretty supportive. There's like a people tons of people that go to cons that do Borderlands 2. Like they seem generally receptive to it. Um when I was in Chicago, a game developer for Steam heard about the game and and came or not Steam uh for 2K Games Gearbox rather
came and played it. Um he's he came he shook my hand. We had talked on Facebook briefly. He's like, "Hey, I've got something for you." And it was uh around some other news of games not being allowed to be showed at the expo. I was like, "Oh, is it a cease and desist?" And uh he's like, "Actually, I kind of thought about making a fake one and handing it to you, but I didn't know you well enough to think it to know if you'd think it was funny." And I was like, "If it was fake, it'd be hysterical." Um, so, you know, he I talked to him a little bit. He's like, "Yeah, I haven't been here too long, so I don't know how people would really feel about it." Um, so we we'll see. It hasn't shown up on their radar yet. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't, but I haven't heard about it. But I'm also like I don't want to poke the bear either. So
I'll just keep living under the radar. I don't want to build it and produce or anything like that. So it's fine.
Uh you don't have anything private labelled. You don't have anything private labelled Aaron?
Uh well I mean it's someone else owns Warhammer. So
Oh god. Yeah. Games workshop.
They're highly latigious.
They're incredible. They're incredibly legitious. They're one of the most legitious companies out there. Um
do I care? No, cuz I will change this over to an absolute parody of this game and I do not care. Um, I'm not
floor space. Um,
warmer 40.
So, yeah, it it it's going to happen no matter what.
Love.
Sure. They'll come after me. Um, we'll see what happens.
Hamburger.
They don't make pinball machines, so hopefully it is a by them. And then song by Henry Cal. So, yeah,
because he's making apparently a ship.
So, we'll see. Oh, that was kind of cool.
Yeah. Most of this is not commercial, so they they stay away from it. Some companies uh little latigitches.
Yeah.
Warner Brothers is one of those.
Yes.
And yeah, um the shop did that. There was a gentleman who made a video called the Stardies. It's a five-part series. Uh they ceased and assisted him uh for making such an amazing show. Uh and then they hired him immediately because he was doing a great job.
So yeah, it's that kind of thing. All right, let's let's show the features. What you got? Show us something cool.
Okay, so
do you want to do you want someone to that actually knows how to play pinball besides
us?
Yeah. You want to play it?
We can make him play it. We already did that earlier.
No, not not just this. We make him play pins in here all the time. This is a thing.
I'm trying to get him a staff position as the resident uh seminar pinball player.
So more embarrassing position.
That's true. All right. So, before I actually like shoot a pencil, talk about
Yeah. Let's go through some of the features of this. We're gonna We are over time. You can feel free to leave. We will not be offended. Lynn is back here at 3:30. So, I have to finish and get this pin out of here by 3:30 cuz the person who runs this room gets really angry. Is it really that much? All right, do I'll be really quick. So, um scoop scanner scoop. [laughter]
Um
yeah, we got 15 minutes. We're fine
cuz you're you're Yeah. all the time. There you go.
All right. So,
take a breath.
Okay. So, um initially this design game, uh if you ever played Playfield one, playfield one did not look like Drop Target, very much like um Attack from Mars and a motor spinner in the back.
So, when I created this game, I was mad at the spinner after I put it in because I found it boring. It didn't actually interact with my player in any way. And so in order to change that around, I decided to go with an infinite loop that you can actually shoot. [clears throat] Uh, this was a heck of a lot more fun for the player. For me, I enjoyed it more. [laughter]
Just keep playing.
Keep your glass off.
Keep the glass.
Keep the glass off.
I lost.
Just for this game.
I lost the mic.
You lost what?
A little clip that holds the mic on. You broke it off to get it on your so I created the infinite the the infinite loop that you shoot multiple times, but I was like, "Okay, cool. That's great. But where's the payoff?"
So, actually, I think I called Mike in the middle of the night because I didn't know what to do. I was out of ideas and I had this weird like right-hand lane up over here and Mike goes, "Why don't you make a player shoot through the pots?"
I was like, "That's a great idea. All right, cool. Let's try that." So, I threw the whole thing in and lo and behold, it's a hell of a lot of fun. And so, I put it into the game and it's those kind of iterations that that make pinball pinball.
We help each other.
Exactly. So, uh another thing that came in was uh is it Future Spa that's got the crossing shots? What's a game that's got a ton of crossing shots?
Crossfire.
Crossfire. So, thank you. Um, you'll get caught up in that.
So, something like that came in with the idea of the of the inner lane kind of like also from Turtles where that it's got that on the left hand side. I was like, well, what if uh I could shoot it both ways for the player. So, not only can you shoot the ball around a Come on. and feed the ball to your flipper, but you can also shoot it the other way and have it feed the inner lane. Shoot fast enough.
There [clears throat] you go.
And feed like that.
Yeah, I remember we talked about that. Yeah.
And that was really fun to shoot. And so
cool, right? Yeah,
that kind of thing was uh was really innovative. But I also love uh games like Deadpool with the snick target um cuz that's really cool cuz it feeds the ball. And I was like, wait, maybe I can put that in the game and add more to it. So [laughter] I put four of them in the game. Um specifically, uh to feed things like jackpots, to feed your spinner, uh to feed a vuck, and to feed the inlane. And the in lane's a cool one cuz it it's actually not off a target, it's off the back of your flipper. So in the left hand side, you shoot and it will uh basically bounce in if you get it right. But um see if we can do this on the uh on the fly. That's fast.
It's so good.
It's so cool.
So satisfying.
I love it.
It's a great design.
I want So um there's a angled target underneath the uh the buck tube which will feed your spinner. So
um that's a really fun thing to do. And of course, like you can program it in. I'm going to program it in for like extra points where you actually rip the crap out of the spinner. And if you do it off the off the snake target, it's worth a ton more points.
Okay. So, so let's let's apply some of the questions that the audience has asked before. So, the question I want to know is which revision of playfield are we on here? Is this CNC cut? Was this a hand cut?
This is CNC cut. This is my my CNC game, my first CNC game. Um Lynn cut it. Um and so this is technically playfield two.
Okay. Okay, so we had one white wood and now this.
And this
is this final except artwork. So the next one gets cut, printed, and repopulated.
Apart from small adjustments, yes, this is
So this is almost final final game on the board.
This is this is pretty much going to be it. Um yeah, this is um this is what I'm happy with.
Excellent.
One of the small adjustments.
Some of the small adjustments.
That's a great question.
Um like what I'm going to change.
Yeah. What's something in here? U
you said you added a post. Oh, yes I did. I did get camera over here.
Don't worry. Go ahead. Point at it.
So up here um was a bad spot uh just cuz it's it's part where the orbits meet the uh the inlanes. And um this essentially was just a bad uh a little location where the ball would get stuck.
And I just took a what was it? A threaded a nut driver. Yeah. Um, oh uh one of the uh one of the nut drivers and just drove a post in there into the play field and it worked great. It it was an easy change and now balls don't get stuck and I have to pull the glass anymore. So like little stuff like that uh you'll find during the show. Um one of the things I actually did during this show um last night was this feed tube uh worked in my house but did not work at the show. It was stdming. And so late last night when I went home at midnight, [laughter] um I went into my CAD, adjusted the degree of pitch to degrees, reprinted the entire thing, like started the print, went to bed, woke up, pulled the thing out of the printer, and now it's here.
Now it works.
Now it works. So like that kind of iteration is little things you find at the show. So it's uh it's good to bring your game to the show because you won't
test it.
Play test. Now Ryan, you had a you had a lot with that with Sonic taking you around and taking all that feedback from everybody. It
was really hard cuz I didn't get any feedback or testing because I did the whole thing during co so I couldn't I I couldn't even have anyone played the game for almost like a year and a half. But yeah, that's why I was so happy to finally get to bring it to the show because someone other than me was playing it and you guys immediately broke it in a thousand different ways, which is excellent. That's that's the most valuable thing. Um, so yeah, just keep bringing it to the shows. Let it get beat on. Learn something like that. Like that. That's what we're actually here to do. We're we're here to show off our work, but we're also here to learn and make the games better. And you get ideas sometimes at 12:00 at night from your buddy. Sometimes you get them from a random person at that you've never met at the show. Um, sometimes you listen to 99 bad ideas and then one of them you're like, "Wait a minute, that's a good one. I'm glad I listened to the 99 bad ones." Mhm.
So yeah, we love the shows. Thank you all so much for like coming out to support homebrew in general. Um because it's really hard and it's [applause] really great. Any more questions? Anybody got anything late lingering things? Now is the time where I plug the next seminar which starts entirely too soon at at 3:30 with Lynn. Uh Lynn is going to uh go through and basically build
No, I'm not. I didn't get my equipment, so I'm going to wing it.
You're going to wing it?
Yeah.
All right. Well, I can't plug Lynn because I don't know what the hell Lynn's doing in the next
We're going to discover together.
Yay.
Well, what we were going to do is kind of community source a pinball machine uh and open source it here. So, we will we will figure something out. Uh which means it will probably end up being a really good hardware tech conversation about stuff that we glossed over. Um so, you should go do that. And I want to thank you guys all for coming. This is the pleasure of my weekend. This is the only reason I'm here is to come here and support these people. Um, this is a fantastic community that uh you and you and where's the last one? Who's who's [ __ ] It wasn't you, was it? I'm about to You're about to [laughter] You're about to get signed up actually. Uh, we'll be on next year. Well, I know I told you that last year,
but you decided to do other stuff.
You're making one.
Do it. Who? You gonna bring one
San Diego over here. Yeah.
Yeah. We're gonna All right.
Find have you and your parent whoever's with you have to come talk to us. We will something to look forward to.
We will find you a maker space. We'll find you a mentor to do this with you. We can do that.
This is the other side of the country. Lynn has enough to do. Children will die on amusement park rides if we take Lyn away.
Again, thank you. 10th anniversary of Pentastic. It is wonderful how much this convention supports this home community. Come grow this with us. Come be with us and and work with these people who want to share their knowledge and share everything that they've put entirely too much time into. You look at how much this takes. 2,000 hours [applause] to put one of these together. That's a full-time job for a year.