Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Pinball Innovators & Makers Podcast Ep 3: Feet First, Head Last

The Pinball Network·video·1h 9m·held·Mar 23, 2023
View original

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Homebrew builder Ernie Silverberg shares his custom League of Legends pinball machine design process.

Summary

Ernie Silverberg, a homebrew pinball builder from Georgia, discusses his year-long journey creating a custom League of Legends-themed pinball machine called 'Battle of the Baron.' The episode covers his transition from virtual pinball to physical machine building, his design philosophy (favoring experimentation over pre-planning), and his creative approaches to sourcing affordable parts, 3D printing components, and implementing RGB lighting throughout the machine.

Key Claims

  • Ernie started in the custom homebrew pinball scene about a year ago (around April 2023)

    high confidence · Ernie Silverberg stated 'I've been in the custom homebrew pinball scene...for about really since last April, I guess, is when I got started'

  • Virtual pinball with bass shakers and tactile feedback lacks the real physical feedback of actual pinball machines

    high confidence · Ernie compared virtual to physical: 'you could tell the difference in the feedback. You could tell the difference in just the...lag from the virtual versus the real thing'

  • Riot Games (League of Legends developer) has been supportive of Ernie's unofficial League of Legends pinball machine, allowing it as long as he doesn't sell it

    high confidence · Ernie stated: 'They basically said, you know, as long as I don't sell it, they don't care...I've even had a couple employees of Riot reach out, and one of them sent me, like, game endgame Riot points'

  • Ernie initially planned to re-theme a Touchdown machine but abandoned it after one week because he felt it would be boring

    high confidence · Ernie explained: 'I originally decided to re-theme an old Touchdown...probably got a week into it and I said, man, I'm going to hate this if I finish it'

  • Every single light on Ernie's Battle of the Baron machine uses RGB LEDs

    high confidence · Ernie confirmed: 'Every single light on the game is RGB. Yeah'

  • Ernie used approximately $200-300 worth of playfield parts sourced from trashed machines for his original prototype shown at Southern Fried Gaming Expo

    high confidence · Ernie stated: 'every part on that machine was from another machine...i maybe had a total of a few hundred two hundred dollars worth of playfields'

  • The back orbit on League of Legends is sourced from a Comet playfield that Ernie acquired off Facebook

    high confidence · Ernie explained: 'I had a spare comet play field here that I picked off, picked up off of Facebook...the back orbit on League of Legends is from Comet'

Notable Quotes

  • “I have a personality where I kind of jump head first instead of feet first. I'm not really guess maybe thinking of everything before I jump in I kind of just go for it”

    Ernie Silverberg@ 1:06 — Establishes Ernie's core design philosophy of experimentation over pre-planning, which becomes a recurring theme throughout the episode

  • “you could tell the difference in the feedback...push the button and the flipper moves, you know, it's completely different”

    Ernie Silverberg@ 2:15 — Explains his motivation for transitioning from virtual to physical pinball building

  • “I truly feel that there's you know two different groups of people in in pinball...you're either a Beatles person or an Elvis person...you're either one who really likes the technology and starts to go down the custom and homebrew path or you're really a player”

    Ernie Silverberg@ 8:43 — Articulates a key segmentation in the pinball community between technology/builders and competitive players

  • “I suck at pinball. And that's the reason why I built one so that I can kind of cheat and, you know, actually win a game”

    Ernie Silverberg@ 8:21 — Reveals a candid motivation for building custom machines—personal skill level and enjoyment rather than competitiveness

  • “I've told a couple of people this where you like almost jump in the air and do like a fist pump where it's like so gratifying”

    Ernie Silverberg@ 27:06 — Describes the emotional reward of iterative design breakthroughs during the building process

  • “RGB is just awesome...if I walked up to, you know, like Jersey Jacks, huge with all their RGB and it's you gravitate to it almost”

Entities

Ernie SilverbergpersonDan RosensteinpersonGreg BraultpersonJodypersonRiot GamescompanyLeague of LegendsgameBattle of the BarongameTouchdown

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Ernie's journey represents emerging maker/builder community in pinball, with accessible resources (3D printing, affordable sourced parts, open-source designs) enabling new entrants without large capital

    high · Ernie built functional machine with ~$200-300 initial parts budget, used free shared 3D models from ownbrew.net, and sourced used/blemished components from eBay and auctions

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Strong preference in homebrew community for experimentation and iterative design (Bob Ross 'happy mistakes') over formal engineering planning; third playfield revision indicates rapid iteration approach

    high · Ernie: 'I jump head first instead of feet first...I just go for it.' Also abandoned pre-planned Gottlieb retheme after one week to start from scratch. Host validated this as common maker approach.

  • ?

    technology_signal: RGB lighting systems becoming standard in homebrew/custom machines. Ernie implemented 100% RGB (all lights and inserts), crediting Jersey Jack Pinball as aesthetic inspiration and enabling infinite shot variety through color changes

    high · Ernie: 'Every single light on the game is RGB.' Also praised Jersey Jack for RGB implementation: 'you gravitate to it almost.' References WS2812 standard, prior truck speedometer RGB work.

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Riot Games granting informal (non-commercial) permission for League of Legends-themed homebrew pinball machine. Employees actively supporting with in-game rewards. Suggests major IP holders may be flexible with non-commercial fan projects

    high · Ernie: 'They basically said, as long as I don't sell it, they don't care...I've even had a couple employees of Riot reach out, and one of them sent me...game endgame Riot points'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.207

0:00
Hi, and welcome to the Pinball Podcast focused on the innovators and makers who are crafting homebrew, custom, and rethemed pinball machines, the technology that makes these personal projects possible, and the companies helping with these journeys. Custom pinballs are a deeply personal and technically challenging undertaking, requiring time, money, knowledge, and most importantly, the desire to make it happen. I'm Dan Rosenstein, your host. Join me and let's go under the play field and see what's needed to make a custom pinball possible. So this month we have Ernie Silverberg from Georgia on the show. Welcome to the Pinball Innovators and Makers podcast, Ernie. You've had quite the amazing pinball innovator and maker journey. Why don't you tell the listener a bit about yourself?
0:44
As Dan mentioned, I am Ernie Silverberg. I've been in the custom homebrew pinball scene. That's what you want to call it for about really since last April, I guess, is when I got started. That's amazing. It's only been just about a year. Keep going.
1:06
So and I have a and my wife gives me a hard time for it, but I have a personality where I kind of jump head first instead of feet first. I'm not really guess maybe thinking of everything before I jump in I kind of just go for it um I uh kind of got started I have always loved pinball um you know played it wanted a machine um as we all know pinball machines are really expensive nowadays they've always been but it's even more so now. So I kind of got started as virtual pinball and got into, I built my own machine, got into it, into virtual, put everything, spent hours and hours and hours setting up tables and setting things up. And it was fun. But then I would go to one of our local places, pinball places and play and come back home and play the virtual. And it just didn't do anything for me. You could tell the difference in the feedback. You could tell the difference in just the we'll call it lag from the virtual versus the real thing. Like you push the button and the flipper moves, you know, it's completely different. So. Kind of. Sat there and I was like, I wonder if I can build my own machine.

Approximately 30-40% of the current parts on Battle of the Baron are from Deep Root auctions, sourced through an eBay seller

high confidence · Ernie noted: 'There is probably about 30% to 40% of the parts on there were actually Deep Root items'

Ernie Silverberg@ 29:33 — Expresses preference for RGB lighting and compares favorably to Jersey Jack Pinball's aesthetic approach

  • “the fact that you can have an insert and make it absolutely any color you want or go from one color to another...you can almost get an infinite amount of shots off of one insert because you can change it by color”

    Ernie Silverberg@ 29:16 — Explains a creative design benefit of RGB lighting for adding gameplay variety

  • “I probably played that game more than any other table on the virtual...Ghostbusters (Premium)...The folks who made it did a really, really good job with it”

    Ernie Silverberg@ 6:04 — References specific high-quality virtual pinball design that influenced his aesthetic and design approach

    • game
    Cometgame
    The Addams Familygame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Ghostbusters (Premium)game
    Avengers Infinity Questgame
    The Simpsonsgame
    Star Warsgame
    Southern Fried Gaming Expoevent
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Pinball Lifecompany
    Deep Rootcompany
    The Pinball Networkorganization
    Visual Pinballtechnology
    MakerBotcompany
    WS2812product
    ?

    community_signal: Established practice in homebrew community of sourcing parts from used machines, auctions, eBay, and deep-discount suppliers (blemished parts) to keep costs low. Deep Root and other arcade operators appear to be major secondary sources.

    high · Ernie sourced ~30-40% from Deep Root auction via eBay, bought blemished ramps from Jody's discount boxes, pulled parts from trashed playfields, avoided 'wasting' good parts

  • ?

    design_innovation: 3D printing enabling rapid prototyping of playfield components (ramps, troughs, custom brackets) without tooling costs. Ernie exported VPX Addams Family ramp model and 3D printed custom ramp variant, demonstrating IP-derived digital design workflows

    high · Ernie printed 3D ramps, trough, and bracket assemblies. Used shared Greg Brault models. Exported Addams Family ramp from Visual Pinball, modified, and printed. Had prior CAD/3D printing experience from truck custom parts.

  • $

    market_signal: Conscious decision by homebrew builders to explore video game IP (League of Legends, others) as source material, seeking to bring younger/gamer demographic into pinball versus relying on retro 80s-90s IP that skews to existing collector base

    medium · Ernie: 'most of your pinball machines that come out are all based on 80s, early 90s items...it's not bringing in a lot of the newer crowd...video games is a great outlet for pinball because you have somebody that already plays a video game'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community divided into two distinct groups: technology/builder enthusiasts (homebrew, custom, mods) and competitive players. Overlap exists but different values and motivations. Ernie positions himself as builder who enjoys tinkering more than winning.

    high · Ernie: 'I truly feel there's two different groups...you're either one who really likes the technology and starts to go down the custom path or you're really a player...people overlap, but really end up in one side or the other'

  • ?

    personality_signal: Recurring personality trait in maker community: experimentation-first, planning-light approach. Ernie explicitly self-identifies as jumping in without full pre-planning, generating creative solutions through iteration rather than formal engineering. Wife jokes about this trait.

    high · Ernie repeatedly references jumping 'head first,' abandoning Gottlieb after 1 week, skipping VPX design phase, physical trial-and-error with screwing/sanding ramps. Host validates this as common maker philosophy.

  • ?

    product_launch: Battle of the Baron progressing through multiple playfield revisions (at least 3) between event appearances. Southern Fried Gaming Expo debut marked first public play/feedback iteration.

    high · Ernie on Southern Fried version: 'every part on that machine was from another machine...few hundred dollars.' Later sources Deep Root parts, suggests major upgrade/revision post-event.

  • ?

    technology_signal: CAD skills and access to CNC/laser cutting becoming accessible entry point for homebrew. Ernie found local machine shop operator who learned pinball-specific cutting and now cuts multiple builders' playfields, suggesting growing service ecosystem

    medium · Ernie: 'found a local guy that actually...cut a play field for me, had never done anything for pinball. And now the guy cuts all my playfields for me...from some of the kits I do and pinball cabinets'

  • ?

    community_signal: Virtual pinball (VPX) serving as entry point and inspiration source for physical builders, despite Ernie's limited use. High-quality VPX implementations (Ghostbusters Premium) referenced as design quality benchmarks.

    medium · Ernie started in virtual pinball, built virtual cab with bass shakers and RGB. Played Ghostbusters Premium extensively and referenced it as well-done. Exported VPX models for 3D printing but found full VPX design planning less useful than hands-on physical iteration.

    • 2:27
    And so the rabbit hole begins. Yeah. And, you know, as I'm sure we'll get into it, there's tons and tons and tons of outlets for people to start building their own machine different ways and no wrong way to do it. No, totally no wrong way. So it's pretty cool you started in virtual pinball. When you built your cabinet, did you like do full force feedback, all the haptics? I've got a virtual cab as well. So did you get into all that or you really went just for just full size? um you know do you focus on just the vpx games or do you do fx3 um and and and pinball arcade or what what you know tell me a little bit of the virtual pinball since we're in the intro it was a full full um standard size pinball machine um i had uh sss so the sound feedback surround sound feedback set up so i had the um bass shakers and the tactile um can't think what those speakers are called right to second but basically mount them to the surface and they vibrate the surface to make the sound um and had those so i mean it was realistic enough with the surround sound that you know if the ball was going around to orbit it sounded like it was going from left to right or right to left but it wasn't i didn't have any solenoids in there so there wasn't any any you know real type of physical feedback other than the bass shaker that would shake a little bit but it It was very similar to maybe a bass shaker on a pinball machine, but not quite as violent. Gotcha. Yeah, I've got a roadshow and that shaker is crazy violent. So I and on my on my on my virtual pinball cab, it's a much, much more subtle shaker. So so awesome. So you start to talk about how how you got into pinball. So what what is your origin story? You know, you've been you've been down this custom route for just over a year. you did a virtual pinball before that um what's your earliest memory of pinball let's you know how how when when did you first gravitate to the slimmer ball probably i couldn't tell you what my age was but sometimes in sometime in the 90s you know just at an arcade playing and kind of always stuck with me i've always been a gamer you know consoles computer um league of legends tons of that, hence the custom pinball. Yeah. Okay. Do you remember the theme of the pinball or anything specific about it, like the very first time you played, or it's just a memory that's kind of hazy at this point? I don't know that I could tell you exactly what game. Okay. No worries. So what types of games do you like? You said you played virtual. You also gone and played physical. What are some of the things you like in pinball machines? What are some of the ones you really like to play? So for me, like I mentioned earlier, I kind of jump headfirst into things, probably somewhere in ADHD. I like all of the more modern games with the larger LCDs for the DM screen with all the different modes and all the different paths that you can take in a game. not to say that the older games are not as fun, but I kind of gravitate towards the more modern just because there's more to do and a lot more, I guess, going on as you play.
    5:52
    As far as like the virtual, I gravitated a lot towards Ghostbusters Premium on there. And that one, I think I played, man, I probably played that game more than any other table on the virtual. It's done really, really well. The folks who made it did a really, really good job with it. That and Medieval Madness a lot, which I enjoy. I enjoy that. The real game of that as well, just as much.
    6:25
    Anything else? Any other classics or more modern machines you would say? Adam's Family. So I pulled. I really like Adam's Family, which, you know, it's one of the most popular. So, you know, a lot do, but we'll get into it later. But part of League of Legends is kind of comes from Adam's Family to a certain extent.
    6:50
    One could say the heart and soul of part of the game. And we'll definitely get into that later on. Do you own any games right now other than your League machine? No, I am actually in the process of. So I've had multiple older games where I've bought them and resold them. I'm in the process of getting an Avengers Infinity Quest. Oh, fun.
    7:14
    I have another one, but I'll talk about it off podcast. Some people will get the reference. Okay. My most recent was a Data East Simpsons. Oh, it's my daughter's favorite machine that we have. And I actually like it, and I considered not re-theming it, but keeping the same theme and adding code to it. Oh, cool. And I may still do that one day because I actually like the game okay.
    7:46
    The biggest thing about that game is once you get so far, there's only so many things you can do. Exactly. And then it goes flat.
    7:56
    I'm not a very good pinball player. And so Data East Star Wars, you know, the listeners are all going to laugh, but the Data East Star Wars or the Data East Simpsons game is pretty much like to my capability. Like, I'm lucky if I can even get the multiball in that game in any given game. I can't get above four million points. So I love the fact that you're thinking about recreating the code. Well, if it makes you feel better, I normally tell everybody that I suck at pinball. And that's the reason why I built one so that I can kind of cheat and, you know, actually win a game. I'm gonna that's that's the best reason to build a pinball machine as far as I'm concerned um I you know I may I may upset some of the listeners but I truly feel that there's you know two uh two different groups of people in in pinball that there is an overlap but there's really like you know you're either a Beatles person or an Elvis person and in pinball you're either one who really likes the technology and starts to go down the custom and homebrew path or You're really a player and you just really like to play as many games as possible. You know, people overlap, but I feel that people really end up in one side or the other of those two camps. I would almost 100% agree with that because I think, like, I love playing pinball, of course, but when I'm playing, I'm like, man, I really think I enjoy building machines and coming up with ideas and putting things together more than I probably enjoy playing the games. I I I I you're you're you're you're you're you're plucking the right cord because that that's exactly the way I feel and by the way just to make it clear I don't think one is any better or worse than the other it's just people are wired different so speaking of that um let's let's actually go into the theme your theme like you said is League of Legends um you know and how did you pick the theme tell you know tell the listener a little bit more about how you got into League and and how you decided that was going to be your machine okay so I've played League of Legends since I think 2011.
    9:55
    I think it was like the end of season one. So their first ranked season that towards the end of that is when I started playing League of Legends. And I, for probably the first seven years, probably played it every day, multiple games, you know, as I could, because I've got a family and I always had full-time jobs. And, you know, so as I could, but I would every single day I played it, you know, at least a few games and kind of was really into it. And then over the last few years of kind of. I still play it on the weekend and I'll play a game here and there. I don't play it probably as religiously as I used to. but when I started kind of trying to come up with ideas on what to do that was the first thing that came to my mind because I really like the game they have a ton of game lore to pull from um there is a lot of YouTube cinematic videos that they've done over the years so they have like this whole story behind League of Legends and they do tons and tons and tons of, I think there's, I want to say there's like four or five hours of cinematic to pull from on YouTube. All kinds of items available. And then I also think I kind of went for that because most of your pinball machines that come out are all based on 80s, early 90s items, which gravitates to probably the crowd that is actually buying them but it's not bringing in a lot of the newer crowd.
    11:43
    So I think different games that are more focused towards, I think video games is a great outlet for pinball because you have somebody that already plays a video game to jump over to pinball it's completely different but it's still the same you need to do these set of things to win a match. Right. It's interesting because I'm so I'm I'm a very big gamer also, but, you know, I'm a little bit older than you. Not not too much. But, you know, my gaming really was on the Nintendo and then the Super Nintendo and just a little bit of Atari. I kind of miss miss that. But by the time you know, I you may not know and the listener may not know. I worked on the original Xbox and yeah. And so like gaming has been in my blood and my lifeline for, for quite some time. But by the time legal legends came around is when my first daughter was born. And so I'm actually not familiar with the property at all. So I actually went and started doing research about like, I've known it was out there. It's, it's like, you can't not know, but I didn't know anything about the lore. I didn't know what the cinematics and, you know, I had watched some of an interview and some, some information I was gathering about you that you had passed to me in prep for this interview. And I actually got more and more interested. And so I started reading more and more about League of Legends. And I totally understand why you decided to choose this. Like it really, like I've never played the game myself, but I can see from the lore how great it would make for a machine. And then as I saw the evolution of your machine, I saw like it come to life. It was, it was pretty amazing and we'll talk about that journey now you chose a very specific aspect of League of Legends the Battle of the Baron why don't you tell us a little bit about that yep so I wanted some form of an upper play field on the game and during a match of League of Legends there's an objective called the Baron Baron Nasher which is like the the match's biggest monster in the jungle that you can kill. If your team defeats it, you get a huge buff that sometimes can lend to a team coming back and even winning a match, even if they were losing a lot. Ernie, can you comment for what a buff is for maybe the one or two listeners that might not know?
    14:02
    What is that? What is a buff? So a buff is a attribute given to you once you complete a, I guess, a reward for doing some kind of a skill shot, I guess would be the best way to match it to pinball. Got it. Kind of like a bonus multiplier. I see. Perfect analogy. Sorry, keep going. No problem. So with wanting an upper play field, I wanted something on the upper play field that made sense to kind of get to and defeat and hit and have something to bash. So there are three items in a League of Legends match that you have to destroy to get to win the game. One is a tower, which is like a defense tower for a castle. It basically has a gun turret that shoots at you if you get too close. There's an inhibitor, which is kind of like a base, we'll call it a base, like a mini base. And then there's a nexus, which is like the main item that you destroy to win the match.
    15:20
    So those are kind of boring. So I didn't want, you know, the main aspect of the game to get to a tower that is just standing there. So that's where I kind of gravitated towards the Baron, which is a moving monster that attacks back and has a health bar.
    15:42
    Interestingly enough, I don't actually have a health bar set up on him yet in the game. And I don't know that I'll have it before TPF, but it's kind of the final idea for it. But there are targets to hit, so there is something on the upper play field. but yeah that's kind of what drove it I wanted something interesting also when I first started I didn't know how Riot Games are the developer of League of Legends I didn't know how they would be towards me using their IP so I wanted to be able to name it something that wasn't just League of Legends pinball you know just in case that there was some kind of an issue there luckily they have been super cool. They basically said, you know, as long as I don't sell it, they don't care. That's awesome. That's really cool that they're supporting that, actually. Very supportive. I've even had a couple employees of Riot reach out, and one of them sent me, like, game endgame Riot points, which is, like, to use in their store. I mean, it's been pretty cool. That's pretty awesome. So, I want to cover your design process, but before we do that, so I want to talk a little bit about how, you know, once you kind of started going down the homebrew route, what skills did you bring to the table and what were some of the very first things that you either sourced or found or learned or did in order to get started with your with your battle of the Baron?
    17:08
    It I would say part of the start was me playing virtual pinball playing different games and kind of saying what what kind of game do I want You know what do I like about a pinball and what do I want to put in my game? So I played a bunch and came up with, you know, different, different things that I really, really liked. And then from there looked at kind of what kind of pinball controllers were available, you know, kind of more so took of an approach, maybe not so headfirst and seeing what was available, what you kind of could do with everything that is available. And then kind of started there. I originally decided to re-theme an old Gottlieb touchdown. It had kind of the and at that point I was going to kind of base it on League of Legends match itself where you have a lane, you have to go down that lane to destroy a Nexus and a tower. Kind of started off very simple and I probably got a week into it and I said, man, I'm going to hate this if I finish it because I'm going to think it's boring.
    18:15
    So kind of took a complete jump back and then started looking up what kind of, or I had already kind of found what files were available for play fields and things like that. Um, and then I found a local guy that actually, he cut a play field for me, had never done anything for pinball. And now the guy cuts all my play fields for me. from some of the kits I do and pinball cabinets and all kinds of stuff. But had him cut me a blank from a Williams. It was a Williams based on the Williams and started off with that and kind of just brought it home and had found some 3D printed ramps.
    18:57
    And started setting shots up. I knew that I wanted four skill shot lanes in the very middle with three pop bumpers below it. I like that in games. I like having a skill shot up there that you have to do with the plunger.
    19:13
    And then I love pop bumpers. And in my game, I actually have it linked to the shaker. So every time you hit it, it kind of gives you feedback. Yeah. And once we get more into the actual league design, how it matches, there's some things I've done on the pop bumpers that if you're a League of Legends player, it makes it even better. Yeah, we'll get into that in just a couple of minutes. I'm super excited to have that portion of the conversation. But while we're here, you mentioned a couple of things that I want to keen on, and I think the listener would be interested as well. You mentioned 3D printing, that you 3D printed some ramps and that the trough was 3D printed as well. did you already have experience with 3D printing or did you pick up 3D printing as you took this on? No, I had already had experience with 3D printing. I've done some custom truck parts in the past for Super Duty trucks and I actually did a lot of printing in that with some custom adapters for using some different stuff in the trucks. Gotcha. Did you CAD that up as well or was that? I did. No, I did CAD that up. That's awesome. Which I, not to say that I'm some great modeler. I am horrible at it. But so the 3D printed trough, you mentioned the 3D printed trough. That was actually, the file was given to me by Greg Brault. And Greg, if I'm screwing up your last name, please don't kill me. But so he, if you can look him up on ownbrew.net, O-H-M-B-R-E-W. He's doing the Beer Fest. He does awesome with his models and he actually shared those with me. And that's kind of what got me started on my game is using his his lower third. He let me use and then I kind of just took the back half and I took a comet. I think I had a spare comet play field here that I picked off, picked up off of Facebook. and I used the back orbit off of it. So the back orbit on League of Legends is from Comet.
    21:21
    And then kind of set that in there and then started just messing with shots. And as you were messing with shots, so although you had experience with virtual pinball, you actually went, to use your words, head first, and started doing a physical design and basically getting 3D printed parts, you know the play field in cat and getting that cnc you built out the lower third you you built the the the um the the the part from comet um how are you laying and how are you laying out your shots what were you using for that that was just me head first approach putting things on the play field i had at that point i had my cobra pin flipping so i would i would either screw in because it was just a, you know, it was a play field that I knew I was going to destroy and then do another one. I would screw the ramps in, try it, you know, if it didn't work, I'd sand down the little hole and move the ramp over just a little bit if I needed to. And then kind of what drove my design, I mentioned the Comet Orbit, and I knew that I wanted an upper right flipper and some kind of a ramp shot on that left side. During the course of that, I had got on eBay and found a used Adams family ramp, ordered that and it came in and I was like, okay, cool. That I cut the ramp in half. So it took the right portion, right entrance off and only used the left entrance and kind of got that set up. And I was like, okay, cool. That's the kind of shop that I want. And then what I eventually did is I, um, kind of stayed with that design and I kept ordering, I think I ordered two of the ramp-o-matic boxes. He does, Jody does a random box of blemished ramps every so often. I bought one one time and then a couple months later I bought another one, but in that first box I was able to get a ramp that was very similar to the Adams family, but had a little bit better angle. And I cut and modified that, using it in a wire form to make it work for the left side. That's so cool that you had the wherewithal and that you had found, you know, basically finding used ramps that might have blemishes, etc. But the ramp still works, like you can still make shots, you can still do layout. And so I have a feeling that after this interview, there's going to be a run, not just to Jody, but also just to people that have random boxes of like old ramps from the last 30 years. Yeah, and I kind of, I think the biggest driver on a lot of it is, yeah, and I'm sure most, you know, the listeners, you know, work a full-time job. I'm not rich. So I'm trying to find items that are attainable without breaking the bank. So that was kind of a way to do it to where I could get a large lump of items and, you know, go to my heart's content on testing shots. And I'll say that up until the point to where I put the last piece of vinyl over overlay on my play field.
    24:31
    I couldn't even tell you how many times my shots changed just a little bit. So, so why don't we get into the design process at this point? So you, did you start any of your design in visual pinball or you went straight to the physical? I tried when I was doing the touchdown Gottlieb, when I was going to do the re-theme on that, I downloaded that table and started in there and trying to set things up. And it would have been another thing just to learn on top of everything else that I kind of did it for maybe a few days. And then I was like, I'm just going to just go for it. and come up with something.
    25:24
    Which, you know, is probably not always the smartest approach because, you know, it's kind of, it can be kind of frustrating sometimes too, because you work one thing out and then it doesn't work the way you want it or something else comes up to where you're like, oh, now I got to change that.
    25:39
    Look, Ernie, you know, I'm an engineer and we're taught to do all design first and then, you know, go into implementation and refine and get to manufacturing. And the reality is, like, as a maker, you just want to kind of jump in and not necessarily do it the engineering way. Like, you want to start head first. So, you know, I totally, totally appreciate it. Like, you know, you don't have to do it the classical way that it's taught. And, in fact, getting that tactile feel is why many of us are in pinball in the first place. So I applaud you for going in. And that dovetails to, you know, you're actually on the third revision of your play field, at least what I saw from the videos. You know, is that correct? You're on your third at this point? Yeah, I believe that's correct. And in one of the videos, you made a very funny comment, which was, you know, you're fixing Bob Ross happy mistakes. Why don't you talk about that a little bit? So, yeah, that's a good one because I actually do think it's true. where I say it's frustrating when something has to change. There's been a lot of times along the way where something's happened. I'm like, man, that would be really cool to move it over there. And that would make it just that much better and then move it. And it's like, oh, you know, the bells and whistles are going off when it happens. And, you know, that's been some of the coolest moments. And then even some of the moments where it's been like, I've told a couple of people this where you like almost jump in the air and do like a fist pump where it's like so gratifying. Now, man, that is awesome. You know, and I think.
    27:17
    So you said you were an engineer by trade. I actually went to school for computer engineering. I didn't want to tee that off without you saying it first. So I had seen that on one of the videos. I went to school for computer engineering. I have always worked in manufacturing facilities. and I am like the world's biggest person maybe against the engineering approach because I there's a lot of nothing not that there's anything wrong but I've there's engineers that think it has to be in a book to do it that way and if it's not in a book it does it then you can't take that approach and I'm like so far the other side of that because I I think some of the best things come from mistakes or, you know, just something that happens and you're like, man, that would be really cool. Yeah. In fact, just dovetailing off that, Brie Pettis, who's, you know, one of the people that's credited with really pushing and founding 3D printing and having started MakerBot, you know, he very famously has been quoted that if he was an engineer, we would have never gotten 3D printing. Like the only reason that 3D printing happened was because it went against some of the engineering basics and the engineering guidance that was in books. So, you know, I definitely take, you know, I follow that advice in the work that I do, you know, outside of work and even at work. You also made another design choice around RGB LEDs for all the lights. Why don't you talk about that a little bit? So we had talked a little bit earlier about the custom truck stuff that I did that I 3D printed for. So part of that that I did was a custom speedometer cluster. And I used WS2812 RGB lighting in it. Bluetooth controller that would make the you could make that cluster look any color. So when I started this. RGB is just awesome. I know not everybody loves it on pinball, but the fact that you can have an insert and make it absolutely any color you want or go from one color to another to me is amazing.
    29:27
    And to me, if I walked up to a machine and had all just cool white LEDs, I'd be like, all right, that's cool. But if I walked up to, you know, like Jersey Jacks, huge with all their RGB and it's you gravitate to it almost. Absolutely. not to mention too is you can almost get an infinite amount of shots off of one insert because you can change it by color so one time this color is this shot the next time you're doing the same shot but because the color is different you know it seems like a different shot and then i don't know there's probably people and you may have heard of x lights for like Christmas lights where you can design whole shows with music and stuff like that. I've done that in the past as well. Oh, cool. So I had a lot of experience with the RGB lighting and the usage behind it. And that was probably maybe the easiest part for me to grasp of all of it.
    30:27
    That's awesome. And then just for full clarification, your GIs are also RGB, just to make sure. Every single light on the game is RGB. Yeah, and we'll talk about the evolution of your machine, but one of the things that I thought was extremely interesting was also how your ability and what you programmed in the light shows evolved over the time that you were building the machine. You can definitely tell that from where you started, not only did the physical layout of the machine change and not only the physical structure and the materials, but also your capabilities with the lights went from a start to absolutely outstanding. So before we go into the design evolution, you know, we started talking a little bit about parts that you had chosen. And you had said you were trying to do it. You know, you got the used ramps. You talked about, you know, cutting some of your own your own pieces, building the lower third. Why don't you talk about where where you got parts from? You've got you've got some interesting, interesting places where you source parts from. Yep. So started out buying old kind of trashed play fields. I tried not using anything that was considered good just because, you know, it's against the holy rule to play build.
    31:44
    But no, so I started trying to find just more items that somebody was not going to use, and then I would just pull items off of it. And my first, you said you had watched the interview from the Southern Pride Gaming Expo. I think every part on that machine was from another machine at that point. so and i i maybe had a total of a few hundred two hundred dollars worth of play fields that i pulled all the parts off so it was fairly cheap you know mostly everything on it was 3d printed except for the couple i know the ramps were 3d printed at that point as well yep yep which was actually the adams family model that i exported out of visual pinball and then spliced and cut and imprinted. Um, so kind of started out there. Then once I got it going and had went to Southern fried, had a lot, quite a bit of play that weekend. There was a lot of times where I just had it in a track mode because balls kept getting stuck and I wanted to walk around and do other stuff. Um, and I, once I got home, I was like, man, I probably really need to get all new stuff and just do it.
    32:54
    So I started looking, sourcing Pinball Life, Marco, just here and there I would pick up parts. I actually found a guy on eBay that had bought items from a Deep Root auction. So there is probably about 30% to 40% of the parts on there were actually Deep Root items. The trough, the flippers, the trough flippers, slingshot, I think the slingshots were as well.
    33:32
    The pop bumpers, I did get those off eBay. Those were used. I haven't replaced them, but I haven't had a need to replace those. So, you also, according to the videos I watched, you built out your own wireform assemblies with what looked like 3D printed connectors.
    33:51
    Yep. So, kind of shout out to Ryan that did the Sonic pinball. He had uploaded some connectors onto Thingiverse. I downloaded those and then just bought some 3mm steel rod from Amazon. I think they were, I think they're about 12 inches, I think each one, 12 or 15 inches, I don't remember. But then I just basically would kind of look at the design. I kind of worked in the power industry and back in my younger years had bent conduit and stuff So not an expert but it kind of helped trying to figure out the angles to turn and things like that um would bend it and then just use the connectors to connect them um yeah thingy huge shout out to the people that put items on thingiverse because i mean it goes a long way i mean there's for anybody that hasn't checked out thingy first there are tons and tons and tons of parts on there for pinball machines yeah and and do you want to do you want to just say what with Thingiverse is real quick. What is it? Yeah. The URL? No, no, no. Like I, for the listener, what, what is Thingiverse just so they know? Oh, so Thingiverse is a website where people can upload their 3d models that they make. Um, you can download them for free. Everything's free on there. Um, and it's, I mean, you can find absolutely anything on there. If you know, you may have something that breaks in your bathroom that somebody's uploaded on there that you can print and replace it. It is probably one of the best websites for makers to find items on, especially for people like me that are not as good at cadding and modeling files. If it's something basic, I can do it. If it's something more advanced, I have a hard time. So let's move on from parts at this point and actually talk about your design evolution, Ernie. the first thing to note is that your oldest video is 10 months old or just about give or take. And the cool thing and watching and I watched every single one of the videos you posted.
    35:56
    You posted about one to two videos, sometimes three videos in a given month. And one of the most amazing things that I saw was that true progression from almost when you started to all the way to where your machine is just from a couple of days ago and how all three of your play fields progressed, how the design progressed, how the light shows progressed. So let's start with how often do you work on your pinball? How often do you work on lead? I would say sometimes I try to work on it a little bit every day, even if it's only for 30 minutes to an hour. when I first started about after the first three weeks month or so I had a working you know somewhat working play field and then I found out about Southern Fried Gaming Expo so I was like I want to make something work before that show so that kind of lit a fire and I kind of went full force going back to the head first you know the ADHD I get kind of hyper focused on items and just started doing it. And like I said, those happy little accidents led to one thing to another.
    37:13
    And from April to, we'll say July, because that's when the show was, I went from a whitewood that barely had any shots to a whitewood with two ramps, three drop targets, multiple targets. I had a couple kicker targets on there to begin with that were from the Gottlieb touchdown, which another shout out to Ryan that did the Sonic pinball. He actually I was trying to come up with a design with that. And he actually took the time to draw something up, sent it to me and said, maybe this will work. Oh, seriously? Yeah, seriously. You know, because I would just ask him questions here and there. And he was very a huge trooper with with helping me along. Um, so those came eventually came out because it slowed down the game too much, not his design, but the, the layout of how that kind of worked out once I got towards the more final. Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I, I think it's more of the hyper-focused and, you know, I kind of get wrapped up in things and just want to go with it. See, it's interesting because for me, like I get in, like I get in these zones and my wife like totally makes fun of me about it where I can go on like a 20 hour like intense coding or building and then like it just flows and flows and then it stops. And then I can go for another four days and then, you know, again, it's like a mad rush like that. And I'm I've always wanted to be someone who could just chunk it out and work in like little bits every single day, because I think I would actually be more productive if I had the the the approach that you take. So I definitely want you to like I really, really admire that. I think I think both approaches, not not to cut you off, but both approaches kind of make sense, because like with me, there was a lot of times where I probably shouldn't have touched it that day and either screwed something up. Interesting. You know, or, you know, drilled the wrong hole. And it's like, you know, I had three play field progressions, but I have probably had nine whitewoods. Oh, OK. Interesting. So I have had more where I've like messed something up and then got another one cut and continued on. so one one thing that i've noticed is that you know you joke about taking the head first approach and starting like you know going basically physical first but it's very very clear in watching through your videos that in your head you have the design and the layout and the plan like even as you you talk going back to like why the baron you were like because then there would be an upper play field and it'll be like you were designing this game even in you know working on a 30 minutes or an hour every single day and going through three three you know three three renditions and and you know nine whitewoods you know you you clearly had a plan so talk to talk to me and the listener about how you chunked up that that grandiose plan into small digestible bites um I would say that the biggest advice in the way that I did it is to not be afraid to screw something up. I think a lot of times people will come up with a designer like, well, that may not work, but it might work. So I always took the approach is like, even though I wasn't physically working on the machine throughout the whole day, when I was that initial, I was thinking of, you know, what what could I do or what? I would lay in bed at night for two hours thinking of different things that, you know, what can I do to make it a little bit better or what should I do?
    41:03
    And I did. You mentioned kind of me seem like I had a plan. I had always knew kind of what my design was.
    41:12
    Most of the revisions and things that I've changed were just small placement items or different things that popped up along the way that were like, oh, that would make a lot of sense to have that there. but I think with the Bob Ross approach I kind of got lucky with some of it because it just kind of fell into place and everybody that's played the game so far has said that they like the layout I would say that it's it's not the easiest to hit the shots I would say it's probably towards the harder side but I guess coming up in a couple weeks at Texas Pinball Fest I'll get some feedback from people. You for sure will. So the one thing that didn't come through from the videos is, well, let me say it this way. There's a lot of music playing in the background when you're playing the game, okay? And you're recording it. What wasn't clear to me was how much of that music is the game music and how much is like you have the stereo on in the background? So anything that you've heard in the videos is from the game. Oh, wow. That's amazing. But most of depending on what aspect of it, if it was the track, there's a lot louder music and a lot more. There's some videos there just because I wanted to make it pretty and, you know, attractive since it's a track mode. But during the game there, there's music that plays. There's different sounds, different voices, you know, like any pinball machine. And then I have it. So one thing we haven't touched on is I wanted.
    42:47
    All three, my back glass, my scoring screen in the play field monitor, I wanted all three to work together so that you could have a back glass that could play videos and change, but not take away from the scoring screen.
    43:01
    I also wanted something when I play pinball, I can't going back to not being good at pinball. I can't look up at the screen and keep the ball going. So I wanted something in the play field. so that people could have call outs there that say, hey, you need to hit this shot without looking up, you know, and the videos. I think most videos on pinball machines are meant for the people watching, not the person playing. So that's kind of the approach I've taken with it.
    43:31
    And that was kind of more selfish towards me is that's how I prefer to play. So that's kind of how I designed it. And like you said before, when you started with that Gottlieb touchdown, you got into it for about a week. You were like, I'm not going to play this game. Why would I go and build it? So, yeah, if you're not building it for yourself, you're job one of what you like to play. That little screen, I'm glad you noted it. That little screen is a really, really awesome touch. I saw in the videos how you have the score, the next mode. You've got very specific call-outs that are being written there. I'm with you. I can't lift my head during play. I can barely trap a ball while I'm in multi-ball. So I hear you on that.
    44:19
    At some point, you move to metal ramps and clear ramps from plastic. You moved to from custom bent habit trails with the 3D pieces to a full wire form. Like your machine over the months took this level of polish after, I don't know, you know, about two thirds of the way through it. Like you put down. Probably August, September. So that was kind of after Southern Fried got feedback. You know, I had people at Southern Fried that had come up to me and they're like, hey, man, I've been watching your build on YouTube or Reddit or, you know, and that was kind of, you know, it was really cool for people to go, hey, I know who you are.
    45:07
    So it kind of pushed me. I'm like, you know. People and there's nothing wrong with it, but most homebrew games always still look like a homebrew game. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to make my game look like a real, you know, commercial pinball or as close to it as I can get.
    45:28
    And, you know, I think. Eight, we'll say half of what people like about games is the theme and how attractive it is. So I wanted to make it look as best as I can, because that the hard thing for my build is most pinball players do not know what League of Legends is. So they see League of Legends is like, what is that? Right. You know, and that's kind of been a hindrance towards, you know, I think just even traction of people following things like that is I think the theme has kind of, you know, certain people, you know, we can we know how people talk about all the new pinballs, you know, whether they like Foo Fighters. whether they like the Godfather, you know, and oh, man, that's a horrible thing, blah, blah, blah.
    46:16
    So, yeah, the so so there's there's two levels of polish that that come very clearly in your machine. One is the artwork. Actually, I should say three. One is the artwork. One is the light show. And the other one is your your visual mechanisms, the the the ramps, the habit trails. they look professionally made. And so talk for a minute how you went from 3D printed prototypes of those pieces to what ends up being on your on your final revision or your current revision of the machine. OK, so for like the ramps and things, I mentioned the box of ramp-o-matic ramps was a large selection in there. And I was able there was something in the box that I was able to work for that. And basically what I did is it was from I don't even remember what I think one's from Goldwing or something. And I don't know. I'm not sure what the other one's from. But basically just use the entrance of those ramps and then cut them and then took wire forms and made those work.
    47:26
    So those wire forms are from other machines as well. They are from other machines. Oh, okay. Some of them have been cut, and then there's two of them that have even been, that I've cut two and put them together to make it work.
    47:41
    Some point down the road, I'll probably move to try to make my own just with a spot welder. But with this one, I've been able to make it all work. And it's not the wire forms are not maybe one of them in particular are not the exact design that I am 100 percent happy with. But it's a design that works that. And it has that level of polish you're talking about. It looks like a professional wire form, which is why why I called it out. So talk to me about the artwork work. Who did the cabinet and play field artwork and the plastics as well? And like, did you do that yourself or? No. So the play field in the cabinet artwork, I used an app called Fiverr. OK, so it's an app where freelance artists go on there and you can they kind of tell what they're they're trying to do. I found a guy on there that had not ever played pinball, but had played League of Legends. And his artwork was kind of what I was shooting for. So I really like zombie Yeti's artwork and kind of his designs, the Ghostbusters, things like that. That kind of real comic looking design is kind of what I was after.
    48:55
    Found this guy. He knew League of Legends. I already kind of had a play field layout set up. I originally so kind of the setback, I had to are two things of artwork. The first one was done by a guy, a guy named Mike Allman of Can You Print This? He's out of the Carolinas. He did that. That was the one that was at Southern Friday. And that that video was happy with it.
    49:23
    And he did a great job, but I wanted the more comic approach. So then this guy, I think I think the guy on Fiverr was.
    49:32
    I think I paid like one hundred dollars. Oh, wow. So and I already had somewhat of a design. I had a I had an A.I., an illustrator file. of the play field cutouts. And then I kind of gave him direction on kind of what I wanted and then told him to kind of just go with it as far as the characters and the design in the back. And there was like maybe two, two revisions, but overall he's done, he did awesome. Like knocked it for me, knocked it out of the park. So, so yeah, no, it's, I, it, it, it, it looks incredible. So if you were to tell somebody else, you know, tell the listener who's going on their, on their journey. They're, they're a year back. They're just getting started. They're, they're buying some, some ramps from, from Ramp-O-Matic.
    50:21
    What guidance would you give them about artwork? Like, would you suggest to go the Fiverr route? Is there, are there things that they should do upfront before they reach out to an artist? Are there lessons you learned that you would, you, you would suggest?
    50:34
    Um, no, I think, I think, you know, making sure a hundred percent what theme you want to go with, which kind of drives everything anyways. I think being 100% on your theme or as close as possible is probably number one. Number two is Fiverr is a great route because there's all kinds of artists on there for every style, and they're fairly inexpensive as well.
    51:03
    So it's a great route. My back glass artwork is actually done from somebody on there. Oh, wow. And I think I paid like 10 bucks. I mean, so it's it's super, super obtainable on there.
    51:18
    And then. Yeah, and I would think just Fiverr and, you know, there are some some individuals out there that do artwork for a living that are obtainable. I think there's a few even on the pinball Facebook groups. You know, they I think they do a great job. You know, I think it comes down to what you want
    51:38
    and then kind of what financial backing you have because you know somebody that a real professional is going to be a lot more expensive So that super good information for the listener And for me I had no idea about Fiverr. Like this is why I like doing this podcast. I learned a bunch of stuff that I had no idea. And it's not definitely not a one man show or one person show, I should say. So let's actually take that forward. So you've, you know, about four months ago, you've got this level of polish on league. You know, the machines come together, you've got your artwork and you're like, I'm not done. So you decide to go start Trident pinball homebrew kits. And like, I want to talk with you about that because you've gone from in just over a year from never having built a pinball machine to having an extremely polished pinball machine and now starting a company that you build homebrew kits for others to get started. So like, tell me how, why did you go down the journey to make the kits? Let's start there. So I think I mentioned earlier about one of the biggest thing you use that people can do is to just not be afraid to start. And I think that that probably stops 90% of the people from actually building their own pinball machine is that they're afraid that they may not have the knowledge. They may not have the, you know, the design, they may not be able to come up with it. So no, I kind of realized that there's not really anyone out there that you can't even really find anybody on Pennside that sells play fields. I think Kruseman does recovers and there's, you know, a few people that, that reprint them, but there's nobody that really just does custom cut play field. So I somewhat of a hustler. So, and not in the negative sense, but I saw the need that that was there. And if like, for me, if I go on Penn side, I look at the homebrew forum.
    53:32
    I read some of the other stuff, but I mainly go to the pen, the homebrew forum because I like seeing what other people come up with. I mean, there's some like Kyle that you had last time is an absolute genius when it comes to designing and, and coming up with everything. I mean, I've seen some of his posts just on the Facebook groups and even a couple other groups. And I mean, some of the stuff that he posts on his designs and he's doing it all himself. Yeah, I would never be able to do that, you know, but and then there's other people that, you know, they're afraid to do the coding.
    54:07
    So I saw the need of a kit that comes with everything. You know, it's a little bit of wiring, but it has absolutely everything that you need in one kit. It's pre pre configured so you can wire everything up and it comes with instructions, plug it up. And then basically have a machine flipping. and so you say it comes with everything um you know take the opportunity to do some advertising what's okay so it comes with it comes with a pre-cut um whitewood with the lower third cut um if you have a cut file i can cut the play fill to any specification so if you have inserts or pop bumper locations things like that already i can cut that um and no price difference on that the uh it comes with three pop bumpers two flippers two slingshots um the slingshot posts rubbers, flipper bats, flipper rubbers, the lane guides, a few pieces of the black covered wood for the side rails, the switches for the lower third, so your four in-lane, out-lane, and then your trough switch comes with the trough. And then trying to work on something that is not included yet, but maybe some, if I can get enough, just some blemished ramps that I can maybe throw in some, a couple little ramps just to get somebody started.
    55:31
    Ernie, in just over a year, you have your own pinball company. Like, how crazy is that? That's so cool. It's so admirable. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And I, you know, taking small steps and, you know, hopefully, you know, I've sold a few of the kits so far. I think there's one is the home uh the friday the 13th i don't know if you've seen that on pitton side but by mud flaps that's one and then um there's a guy doing labyrinth that bought a kid and it's super cool that not only do you have a pinball company at this point but you're also helping others share the love. And, you know, when the way I got introduced to you was through Facebook on the Strictly Customs group, and I think Pinball Enthusiasts as well, where you posted that you were doing this. And then I started, this was right around the time where I was working through what I wanted to do with the podcast. And so I started backtracking, seeing some of the other work you had done, found your league machine where you were there. But one of the things that I noticed very quickly was you started an entire discord and a full community around homebrew and custom built machines where there's conversations about programming and another another area for machining and you know how to do rules and how to how to deal with the control systems and build cabinets like artwork everything that you music everything you'd want you build out this community and one of the one of the cool things and one of the reasons i wanted to have you on the show is because you leverage the community to get started. You leverage the community and work with the community through the first year, year and a half of your journey. And now you started to contribute in a scaled way back to the community, not by just delivering a technology and a product, but also the help to get others bootstrapped. And just like yesterday or the day before, I was on Pinball Strictly Customs, Jake Danzig's group, and noticed that somebody had asked a question of something you did on League with your playfield monitor, the small monitor, and you said, try to do something like this, and you sent a picture. And it had to do with using a static image with animated text on top of it. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm totally witnessing the evolution that Ernie's going through and the journey you're going through. So talk to me about community. Talk to us about your thoughts on that. Yeah, no, this is my favorite part because, honestly, there's a few people um the greg brault that i mentioned earlier he's been a huge help with the initial design um and even some coding questions i've done programming in the past but there's things in there that i i get confused i'm not the greatest programmer but he's helped me through a lot of it um mike becker a fight club he has helped me a lot with some of the coding just here and there with different questions um he actually i the company that i work for for my full-time job is out of Seattle. He lives near Seattle. I came the week after a show and I was like, dang, I missed it. He actually invited me to his house to play fight club at his house. That's awesome. So I'm in Seattle as well. So the next time you're up here, like let's, let's grab a beer. I'd love to sit down and talk. Yeah, no, I don't think that I would have, I definitely would not have made it as far as I did as quick as I did without the community. You know, I would go as far to say that not even just a custom, but almost all of the pinball community, other than on pin side, is very helpful, very helpful towards everybody. You know, it's, everybody's willing to, to help. Like we have a, in Georgia, we have a local group called Gapis, which is like Georgia Pinball Association. I can't, I don't remember exactly what it stands for, but it's an email chain and people sell their machines. They ask for parts and it's just a group of people that help each other. And a lot of times people are just, hey, you can have this.
    59:34
    Or, hey, you might help with this. I think community and having a group of people that you can ask a question, because sometimes you may know the answer, but you need to bounce it off of somebody to say, hey, is this the right approach? Right. And just even having somebody that I've worked through problems myself, just by writing it out to ask somebody a question. And I'm like, oh, that's the way, you know, kind of work myself through it. So wanted a there are not. I did create the discord and discord. I don't know that has been done before. Discord is a great server because it saves all the chats. You can break it up into multiple groups.
    60:11
    The fast guys use Slack. So they actually have a fast group and it's a great group of guys on there.
    60:18
    Biggest thing there is that it only saves so much history. So if you want to see something that somebody said in the past, it's hard to find. Just wanted to create a group kind of that had everything to where anybody could ask, access it and then get it. And it's, I think you have to request to join the server, but it's open to everybody. Yep. And in the show notes, if it's okay with you, we'll post a link to folks who are interested. So with that, let's think about what's next for Trident Pinball and for you. So in one of your clips, I saw something about a Goody's Pinball. yeah so i have a design that so i mentioned earlier about a lot of people not knowing what league of legends is so i had posted i think it was on pinball enthusiasts on facebook one day and said hey if you guys wanted to see an 80s 90s pinball what would you want goonies was one of the highest one i love the goonies so i was like you know maybe maybe the goonies is the one and i have a working design that I think is, will be absolutely fantastic. So, so, so I'm, I'm a Goonies head. I love Goonies. Okay. When I saw that video, I went back and look, cause I'd seen, I mean, there are some custom Goonies tables before. And just because somebody's done it before, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be done again. Like this is your own project. This is your own vision of what it's going to look like. And like, it's great that you're going down this journey and I'm sure it's going to be absolutely awesome. It ends up, as I started looking at Goonies tables, there's at least two virtual pinball ones. And I found three other Goonies pinball machines. So I think even if you don't include the digital ones, that Goonies has been done in homebrew and custom, either tied or more than any other pinball machine. And I think it's awesome that you're going down this route because we need a new Goonies machine in our lives. like i cannot wait to see it come together yeah and i know i i haven't seen i knew there was one other custom one i i'll have to get the link from you for the other one just to see kind of what ernie it very well could be that it was somebody rebroadcasting the same one i looked at it i thought it was different but you know i'll i'll send you the links there's one one that's a re theme of something i don't know what game they rethemed but it's it's pretty cool it's what they did with it um but yeah no kind of that's kind of what i landed on it was between that um duck tails and princess bride oh three three great choices man so that's kind of what i've landed on so far um yeah and i think hopefully i wanted to have it ready for tpf but i'm probably it's not going to be ready i probably looking more like maybe chicago the expo at chicago i all all my plan is to be at expo and i i would i would love to to see it and see you so you're talking You talked about TPF a few times. That's kind of the next big milestone. And, you know, you you're going to be bringing an amazing custom, amazing homebrew to TPF. Are you entering it in any contest? Is there actually nominated for a Twippy's for the best homebrew? So hopefully, you know, there if I at least get a runner up, if not, I'm up against a great group of people. I think I've met everybody that's been nominated this year. So, you know, like I said, Fight Club has been a huge inspiration to me. I actually nominated was one of the ones that nominated him for this year.
    63:52
    Jake is has done a lot for the community with the custom strictly custom group. That was actually the first Facebook group that I found looking through to find out kind of what was available.
    64:05
    Jake did a fantastic job with that group. And I wouldn't I wouldn't be here without Jake either. So then Bob with Elf. And then the what is it, Pinsanity?
    64:16
    The the what is it, Pokemon? That guy is awesome. He actually did a League of Legends machine, too. Oh, really? I didn't realize that. He's only. Oh, go ahead.
    64:28
    He's only posted, I think, one or two videos of it, but it was actually at the expo this last year. Yeah. Jake has a encyclopedia recall of of custom machines. I'm not at that point yet. You know, I. But but so if there is another one, I hadn't seen it. So, look, here's the thing. Obviously, there's a number of, like you said, very amazing builders, makers, innovators who are going to be at TPF. There's a lot of very innovative machines as well. You know, whoever wins definitely will deserve it. I'm super happy and super, you know, super excited for you that you're in the running, that, you know, you're going for it. within just over a year to have gone from really, you know, playing on a virtual pinball all the way through to building your own machine, which is amazing, designing your own light shows, going through multiple different revisions of it, going on that maker journey and the innovation you've had. Like you've come to the show and talked about numerous different ways that others can get involved, your innovation in the community, your machine speaks volumes for who you are and how you go about things. And I wish you the best of luck without taking away anything from the other nominees for the best custom and homebrew. I wish you good luck. I can't wait to hear what happens at TPF. I'm excited to see what happens with Goonies Pinball. And I'd love to hear more about how Trident Pinball is going. What are some of the ups and downs? What are the trials and tribulations? And so I'd love to have you back on the podcast if you're willing to do it. Yeah, for sure. I've enjoyed it and had a great time and appreciate the kind words. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. I know it's a upstart podcast and to be one of the first interviewees really, really means a lot. So thank you. Thanks for joining the podcast. Thanks for listening. And I can't wait to see what you make.
    66:42
    Thank you. Bye.