You wont be doing nothing in regards to "pinball machines"!! No soldering, no nothing! I took an electronics class and no one there knew nothing about pinball, even the instructor didn't even know what a "leaf switch" was, and he held a MASTERS degree in electronics. So I brought one in to show him and he looked at it like a caveman would a lighter!You do learn the color bands on resistors and there purpose. You will learn "kirchoff's law", "Ohm's law", you will learn how to make a circuit. There really wasn't anything hands on except learning to read a multi-meter and take readings off batteries, etc. It was useless really if you wont to learn how to work on pins! I was wanting to learn how to solder on circuit boards, etc. but nothing like that in the first 2 years I went. I learned more by going on pinball websites and researching. Save your money!! You been warned!