Pinball Applications for Engineering Education

Zachariah E. Fuchs

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Conference: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual Conference
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
Start Date: July 26, 2021
End Date: July 19, 2022
Conference Session: Electrical and Computer Division Technical Session 9
Tagged Division: Electrical and Computer
Page Count: 24
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--37581
Permanent URL: https://strategy.asee.org/37581
Download Count: 452

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Paper Authors

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Zachariah E. Fuchs University of Cincinnati

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Zachariah Fuchs received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Evansville in 2007. Subsequently, he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and DoD SMART Scholar at the University of Florida, USA where he received a M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering in 2009 and 2012 respectively. He was previously a research engineer with the Sensors Directorate of the Air Force Research Lab at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Wright State University. Since 2018, he has served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Cincinnati.

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Abstract

Pinball machines integrate many core topics in electrical engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science in order to create an immersive world. These topics include power management, microcontroller and real-time programming, digital logic, reactive state machines, sensor integration, and actuator control. The broad range of topics and interesting application make pinball an ideal teaching vehicle for engineering education, and we have recently created a new pinball themed Introduction to Mechatronics course with a heavy emphasis on labs, projects, and experiential learning. This course is an undergraduate and graduate electrical engineering course that focuses on the integration of microcontrollers, actuators, and supporting electronics to create a complete rudimentary pinball machine. Each lesson and corresponding lab address a practical engineering topic as it applies to an element of a pinball machine. Over the course of the semester, the students add components to the machine while also writing the supporting computer code. For the final project, students integrate the individual elements together to implement a complete pinball controller and ruleset. Although the lessons are taught within the context of pinball, the topics are generally applicable to the broader embedded systems, automation, and robotics industries and provide students with valuable hands-on experience in building and testing a real-world system

This paper discusses the design and implementation of the course and how each of the mechatronics topics are mapped to different elements of the pinball machine. Topics include basic I/O, interrupts, timers, communication methods and protocols, driver circuitry, actuator (stepper motors, dc motors, solenoids, servos) control, user interface, and reactive state-machine development. We specifically discuss how the lessons and labs build upon themselves over the semester to culminate in a complete, functional machine. A custom designed pinball machine and custom node based embedded system architecture were developed specifically for this course. The course pinball machine includes both traditional pinball mechanisms donated by a commercial pinball manufacturer (actual company name will be used in final version) as well as actuators and sensors that are not typically used within pinball machines in order to provide learning and lesson opportunities for their interface and control. The course was taught in the spring 2020 and fall 2020 semesters and received very positive student evaluations.

Citation
Format

Fuchs, Z. E. (2021, July), Pinball Applications for Engineering Education Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37581

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Pinball machines integrate many core topics in electrical engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science in order to create an immersive world. These topics include power management, microcontroller and real-time programming, digital logic, reactive state machines, sensor integration, and actuator control. The broad range of topics and interesting application make pinball an ideal teaching vehicle for engineering education, and we have recently created a new pinball themed Introduction to Mechatronics course with a heavy emphasis on labs, projects, and experiential learning. This course is an undergraduate and graduate electrical engineering course that focuses on the integration of microcontrollers, actuators, and supporting electronics to create a complete rudimentary pinball machine. Each lesson and corresponding lab address a practical engineering topic as it applies to an element of a pinball machine. Over the course of the semester, the students add components to the machine while also writing the supporting computer code. For the final project, students integrate the individual elements together to implement a complete pinball controller and ruleset. Although the lessons are taught within the context of pinball, the topics are generally applicable to the broader embedded systems, automation, and robotics industries and provide students with valuable hands-on experience in building and testing a real-world system

This paper discusses the design and implementation of the course and how each of the mechatronics topics are mapped to different elements of the pinball machine.
Topics include basic I/O, interrupts, timers, communication methods and protocols, driver circuitry, actuator (stepper motors, dc motors, solenoids, servos) control, user interface, and reactive state-machine development. We specifically discuss how the lessons and labs build upon themselves over the semester to culminate in a complete, functional machine. A custom designed pinball machine and custom node based embedded system architecture were developed specifically for this course. The course pinball machine includes both traditional pinball mechanisms donated by a commercial pinball manufacturer (actual company name will be used in final version) as well as actuators and sensors that are not typically used within pinball machines in order to provide learning and lesson opportunities for their interface and control. The course was taught in the spring 2020 and fall 2020 semesters and received very positive student evaluations.

AU  - Zachariah E. Fuchs
CY  - Virtual Conference
DA  - 2021/07/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Pinball Applications for Engineering Education
UR  - https://strategy.asee.org/37581
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--37581
ER  -