My Hanging Pinball Table

Ottawa had its own Pinball Conference, the Ottawa Pinball and Gameroom Show 2012
http://ottawapinball.com/

I wished I'd brought earplugs, but it was a great time. While I was there I saw this pinball table (not sure if that's the right name for it-- the piece of wood that the ball rolls on) for sale. I thought of hanging it up, but it was huge. Did I really want to take it home on the bus? Would my beloved like it?

I got to talking to the person selling it and he mentioned that some people put Christmas lights behind the colored plastic. My eyes lit up. After bargaining him down to $20 (cheap!) I brought it proudly home.

I ordered Christmas lights and strung them around the back so that the holes had lights behind them. Some of the empty holes (places for things to go through) I covered with some reddish-purple acetate I got from the art supply store. My dad helped me with all of this.

I brought it to my office at school and plugged it in. I love it. The lights are LED and draw so little energy that I just leave it on all the time. The little box that changes the lighting pattern fits perfectly into a big hole in the bottom of it. People can see it as they walk by.

You can see a video of it working here (at the end of the video you can see my badass treadmill desk-- that will be the subject of a future post):