Engineering On The Edge

Here’s a perfect combination of engineering know-how and possibly having too much time on your hands. A University of Colorado engineering student has built a full-size, fully functioning pinball machine out of K’Nex parts, proving once again just how versatile those little plastic pieces can be (and that my fears that my own children may be building a death ray with them in the basement are not entirely unfounded).It took Andrew Locke four months to construct the machine out of the tiny plastic rods (around 17,000 of them). The only non-K’Nex components are some rubber bands and the flippers. It uses a series of K’Nex motorized lifts to move the balls to the top of the structure, then drops them down a lengthy track to build up enough speed before dropping onto the table.

If you’d like to recreate the machine in your own home, you can view more details (and see a ton of photos) here.

Locke also built this massive “ball machine” out of 31,000 K’Nex pieces that reaches the ceiling of his apartment.

You can see a video below:

Source: Cnet