Bowling Fan Builds DIY Alley for NYC’s Little Lebowski Shop

People have been bowling for the better part of 5000 years (ancient Egypt and Rome were the top competitors in those days) and there’s something satisfying about the sound when the ball slams into the pins. The only thing better than going to the bowling alley is having one in your own home. Maker [LLBowling] did just that for the Little Lebowski Shop in NYC, giving them their own personal lane. While he did not list specifically how he designed it, it looks pretty straightforward.

Six pins are arranged on a triangle-shaped platform with string running through the pins and anchored to the platforms base. After the ball is thrown, the pins are reset by pulling on a cantilever that raises both the pins and platform back into place. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech system out there but it is effective and certainly ingenious. The only drawback is that there’s no automatic ball return, players have to retrieve their own balls, which isn’t so bad considering that only 70 years ago bowling alleys had employees who reset the pins and brought back the balls by hand.