Fun & Games

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.

Buggy slot machine reports M payout, woman gets

Buggy slot machine reports $40M payout, woman gets $20

Back in March, Louise Chavez placed a 40-cent wager at a slot machine at the Fortune Valley Casino in Central City, Colorado. When the wheels stopped spinning, the machine told her she’d won the jackpot:

People were coming up to me saying I won $42,000,000, or at least $42,000. Lights were flashing, it sounded like a fire truck, the screen said ‘see attendant.’

The casino claimed it was a glitch, returned the $23 she’d put into the machine, bought her breakfast, and comped her a free room for the night.

Now, per this story in IEEE Spectrum, the Colorado Gaming Division has completed its investigation and determined that the reported payout was, indeed, the result of a bug caused by “two Showcase Showdown awards occurring quickly after each other while the Grand Game bonus feature was already in play.” [Thanks, Glen!]

Awesome GBC (great ball contraption)

This gigantic Mindstorms robot is quite possibly the most skillfully designed I’ve ever seen. There are at least ten different subsystems that deserve their own posts — I especially love the many ball-elevating systems, particularly the one that sorts soccer balls into one channel and basketballs into the other. GBCs are collaborative building projects where […]

Modular marble run with marble pump

Modular marble run with marble pump

Matthias Wandel, whose Marble Adding Machine was featured in MAKE: Volume 20 and whose homemade bandsaw appeared on Make: Online last month, is up to his usual shenanigans with a modular marble run featuring an excellent marble pump. Interested in building your own? Wandel is selling the plans for fourteen bucks. [Thanks, Don!]