So I just finished restoring a 1977 Gottlieb Super Spin (thread is in technical section if your curious) and I had this big pile of left over parts. Including a ton of plastic faceted posts and all the old rubbers and post screws as well as plastic pieces for the flippers. So we grabbed a cardboard box and flipped it over and just punched the screws through the cardboard and played around and my son was having a blast making his own machine. So.. we got semi serious (like 2.5 hour TOTAL time) and went to the garage.
I had a piece of flex board (basically a VERY fine particle board about 1/4 thick) left over from a cabinetry project and we just started tracing out a head stone shaped piece and adjusted dimensions totally on the fly until it kinda looked like the open part of a play field. I cut it out, my son grabbed all the pieces and started making things and then I cut a few pieces of wood to provide edges and we spray painted the edge pieces white, the play field blue then rapidly cut stencils for fish and a bird (his choices) and sprayed them in colors he wanted and then basically threw some acrylics onto the stenciled areas to make eyes etc... all of this done with rapid bakes of the spray in hot sun. I cleared the whole thing after screwing on the side boards with left over Krylon Triple thick and then we cut a few pieces of survey stakes to back the play field were we were going to screw in posts and anchored the plastic flippers onto playfield posts so they can be moved by hand. Threw a ball on it and my son had a so much fun flipping the ball around. We plan on adding some either finger cymbals mounted on play field posts (if I can find any) or big washers (easy) to get some "sounds" and adding a few more rubber rings between posts to provide yet more bounce... but he loves it.
I will post a pic when I can get one, but if you have left over parts... and a young child. DO THIS! This morning before school he was playing it and ran over telling me he had set the "super score" (high score)... so he is keeping track of the "score" and having a ton of inventive fun! He cannot wait for me to get home so we can go to the store and find some things to put on our play field! I am so happy I kept all the trash!
Do NOT expect anything but a very very quick very crude artwork in the pics... its for a 5 yr old and we did the entire thing in less than 3 hours, every coat of paint, all the cutting, all the mounting etc etc. There are a few big thumb marks in the clear as it was still drying when we mounted everything but he loves it. Would not change any thing- at all! Thumb prints and all its his first real project- he even used a ratchet to screw in 1 post then told me to do it! No, he didn't actually do a lot, but he was "working" along side me the ENTIRE time, using my levels, tape measures and scrap pieces to build all sorts of things and he had a great time! Now he wants to build an airplane! YEAH!