Test Your Fate: Acrylic Top

In order to finalise the production of the pinball machine the acrylic top needed to be added to contain the ball. Therefore a sheet of acrylic was ordered, cut to size for the pinball machine. However when the machine was test sometimes the ball roles to the bottom of the playing board meaning if a solid sheet was attached the ball would be trapped. Therefore a small opening needed to be cut into the acrylic that would allow balls to be collected from the bottom. In addition a small hole to replace the ball also needed to be added to the sheet.

The process of cutting into the acrylic was quite difficult as the rectangle and circle needed to be placed in the exact place of the acrylic for the acrylic to be usable. This meant precise measurements were taken for each section to make the tests as accurate as possible. Once these had been taken test were conducted using the laser cutter and mountboard to see if the cuts would align on the acrylic (see figure 1-5). In order to register the rectangle and square, another rectangle was used to register the size of the acrylic which allows the rectangle and circle to register to the sheet of acrylic. Once the tests had been conducted and I felt the positioning was accurate a small square place outside of the registration rectangle, and the large rectangle was deleted so only the circle and rectangle would be cut. The small square maintains the registration without cutting off anything from the edges of the acrylic sheet. The test sheet was then used as a marker to place the acrylic on the laser bed in the exact place where the large rectangle had been cut out allowing the registration to be precise (see figures 5-7). Once a test had been conducted on mount board, which worked the final cut was conducted on the acrylic. This registered properly allowing the acrylic to be placed on the board using double-sided tape. As the acrylic is very clear the unfinished wood and tape can be seen through the plastic therefore vinyl has been added to cover up the unfinished wood (see figures 8-9).

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