Owen Lathrop, a fourth grader from Union, said he especially liked the Battle Mode feature, which links two PinBox machines together so players can attempt to send their ball through their opponent's board. He hammered nails into the board at different spots to make obstacles for the marbles. Second grader Dillon Nicholas, also from Union, designed a board with three "security robots" repurposed from found plastic objects. "It's a trick!" he said, laughing, "just to get people to do it." Union Elementary School first grader Liam Noyes glued a large sign on his play board that told players to send their ball through an opening for a prize however, there was no prize. Sure enough, the students used glue guns and found materials including bottle caps, straws, Popsicle sticks and cardboard to construct their own play boards. Talbot says he hopes the game will inspire players to release their "inner MacGyver." An instruction book offers tips such as using a Popsicle stick for a bumper, bending cardboard into ramps or using an empty creamer cup to catch the ball. The kit includes two playing surfaces, or play boards, which are intentionally left bare to allow for customization.Ĭreativity is encouraged. ![]() After assembly, the working pinball machine is complete with flippers and a rubber-band-powered ball-release mechanism. Step-by-step instructions are designed to make it doable for kids ages 7 and up. It comes in a kit containing 12 flat "slides" of die-cut cardboard ready to be punched out along perforated lines and assembled. ![]() Matchstick, who describes the PinBox as the "X-Box of cardboard." The elementary school students were playing with prototypes of the PinBox 3000, a low-tech invention developed by Montpelier residents Pete Talbot and Ben T. And instead of metal and glass, they were made out of cardboard. Rather than electricity, these pinball machines were powered by imagination. But theirs were far from the machines found in modern arcades. They were designing a familiar game: pinball. Kids in Montpelier's River Rock School after-school program tinkered with ramps and bumpers on a recent November afternoon. ![]()
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