2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An international, project-based collaboration between two universities—one in the United States and one in Germany—focuses on the end-to-end design and fabrication of a fully functional pinball machine. Pinball provides a compelling, integrative platform for engineering education, combining mechanical design, electrical systems, and embedded computing in a context that students will encounter in industry. The project adopts a top-down systems-engineering approach: changes to the playfield architecture propagate to mounted hardware, wiring, control logic, and game progression, reinforcing systems thinking. To meet cost and manufacturability constraints, one student cohort leads the mechanical design and additive manufacturing of key components (e.g., flippers, bumpers, drop targets, spinners).

Complementing this effort, the partner cohort develops the sensing and control architecture—interfacing sensors with PLCs and embedded systems—to capture events and transmit inputs to the computing system. The paper reports the design methods and validation of these electromechanical assemblies with respect to reliability, repeatability, and manufacturability under realistic classroom constraints. Evaluation includes both technical testing and playability studies to assess whether the resulting system is engaging and robust. Finally, the collaboration itself is analyzed, with attention to cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary teamwork dynamics as the students co-design, 3D-print, integrate, and iteratively refine the machine’s subsystems.