Galaxy Plinko

Hello everyone! To start off, this instructable was made for the Game Design - Student Design Challenge for Spring 2023. I am a grade 10 student at Nothern Secondary School in Toronto, Ontario and I am also the design lead of the robotics team in the First Robotics Competition, for team #8884 Knight Owls. I use Onshape and Fusion 360 for all of my designing especially in the robotics team.

Galaxy Plinko is a theme for the original arcade game, Plinko. In this game, a ball is dropped at the top of a hollow rectangular prism. Once dropped, the ball rolls to the bottom of the prism but it does not fall in a straight line, however, the ball hits needles which deviate the ball horizontally. After, the ball reaches the bottom of the prism and lands in one of the few cups, with different scores on each one. There are also a few holes in the board where the ball may roll out of the board, which means that no points are gained.

I used Fusion 360 to create my design for the galaxy plinko game.

First, I made a solid rectangular prism and I added 7 holes from the top/front view. I then added the glass plates to cover the front view of the 7 holes. Then, I added the text for the score numbers, extruded them into the glass, and added the colours for score base component. I also made the ball so that I could visualize the spaces between the ball and the board.

Next, I started on the front of the board, where the ball will traverse through. I made the board at a slight 15 degree incline so that the ball could roll down slowly instead of dropping down. I created the back, right, left and front cover where the front, right and left was transparent so that the game players could see the path of the ball. I then added the needles and spaced them out enough for the ball to pass through them.

I thought about the idea of having holes for the ball to exit from the front board so I started on the back of the frame, creating 3 more covers with all of them being transparent.

At the same time, I also thought about creating a drainer where balls would be collected from the cups and would be drained out of the game. This would make it easier for players as they do not have to reach their hand in the cups but they can just collect the balls from the exit. I started to work on the drainer by extending the bottom of the base downwards.

While finishing the drain and colouring most of the bodies, I thought about creating movable parts that could open and close. If it was closed, it would act as a floor and the ball would not be able to drop until the part is opened. This would be useful in the top and the bottom of the board where players would want to empty the cups or drop the ball at their own timings. I also added the stoppers on each movable part so that it could have a stopper that stops the part from sliding out entirely.

While colouring the parts, I finally finished the drain, where the back collector would empty the balls in the drain. I wanted to make all of the surfaces on the drain slanted so that the ball could roll down without getting stuck. I also added the glass plate to cover the front of the drain and extruded the cups to reach the drain. Finally, I made a rectangular hole which would be at the end of the drain, so that the balls could exit the entire game.

Next, I added the galaxy background on the front part of the middle board. I then removed some holes from the same board so that the ball could escape, and added asteroid images at the same place as the holes. After that, I made U-shaped brackets so that they could capture the ball entirely, and the ball could then enter the back collector. I also worked on finishing the colours and grouping the bodies into components.

Finally, I added a few little small details to finish designing the game. I created triangles at the side of the board to prevent the ball from dropping near the sides of the board. I thought that triangles worked better as the ball would not get stuck, unlike the needles being at the side of the board. I also added a simple stand so that it could be able to stand upright without falling.

Congratulations! This is the finished product of Galaxy Plinko.