Halloween Plinko Prep

October 29, 2025

I was never very good with electronics. And it took a tremendous amount of trial and error, to get our Plinko board working, back when we first made it in 2022.

I took a lot of notes, before we put this thing away in storage. And tonight, I set about seeing if this thing would still fire up after being tucked away for three years.

The Plinko board, set up (precariously) for testing.

IT’S ALIVE!!!

Amazingly, there wasn’t much to really do beyond reconnect a few loose wires. I never did solder things together, so everything is still hanging by a prayer and running off a breadboard. But it works!

As a celebration, I ate some of the candy that was still in the display areas, at the base of the machine. It tasted like victory.

// Edit: Later in the night, I told Liz that I had some of the candy in celebration. Her eyes widened, as she reminded me that the candy was really, really old.

To me, the candy was just a year old. But she pointed out that we’ve had a few other Halloween projects since then. We used Operation in 2024, and The Candy Grabber in 2023.

The KitKat I had, was three years old. Reader, I have to tel you – it did taste like victory. But it also tasted like a mistake.