The Makerball is an awesome, DIY pinball machine for tinkerers

How we miss thwacking a silver ball around The Twilight Zone, before panic flipping our way to glorious failure. Of course, boring things like ‘money’ and ‘space’ have stopped us from recreating our pinball glory days at home, but not any more – the Makerball (from £193) is a brilliant DIY table that we’ve already cleared a space for our in our shed. The wooden frame and basic obstacle set apparently takes only 30-60 minutes to build, depending on your screwdriver skills. And from there it’s just a case of crafting your own obstacles like the plant-inspired masterpieces above or, if you want it to keep score, connecting its wires to a microcontroller (not included) and installing the smartphone app. Just don’t let us catch you nudging…

Mark Wilson Features editor

About

Mark's first review for Stuff was the Nokia N-Gage in 2004. Luckily, his career lasted a little longer than the taco phone, and he's been trying to figure out how gadgets fit back into their boxes ever since. While his 'Extreme Mark Wilson' persona was retired following a Microsoft skydiving incident, this means he can often be spotted in the wilds of South West London testing action cams, drones and smartwatches, and occasionally cursing at them.

Areas of expertise

Smart home tech, cameras, wearables and obscure gadgets from the early 2000s.