Passion for Pinball Restoration

Discover the journey of a K-5 STEM teacher turned pinball enthusiast, dedicated to restoring machines and enhancing gameplay experiences for families and friends.

My name is Tanner Walters and I'm a K-5 Elementary STEM teacher with a passion for tinkering.

During a summer break, I found a few broken EM pinball machines and kept myself busy by learning how to fix them up and restore them. Once they were up and running, my family and I fell in love with these machines, but there was no contemporary way to show off our family's high scores. That's when I got to work on what is now known as the EM Score Keeper.

From there, my passion for these machines has grown. I developed the Attract Mod, Insert Leveling Stickers, Grounding Kits, Fuse Breakers, and many more. I'm a pinhead for life!

Bringing Pinball to My Students

My students use the engineering design process to learn about and construct their own Pinball Machines out of Maker Space materials. We celebrate our hardwork with a school-wide "Arcade Day!"
Original Pinside Post

We also use pinball to learn about many other science and engineering topics throughout the year for all of my 550 students (K - 5th)! They LOVE it!

It’s also shown to be a great therapeutic tool in the classroom for young learners that need a break. It has become a center piece in my STEM program I’ve built from the ground up!

The See-through Pinball Machine

I built a see-through pinball machine for my students to use to learn many different science topics. Check it out!

Make a Donation To My Classroom!

My classroom pinball machine (like all pinball machines) needs some parts and service from time to time. If you want to contribute, you can! See the “Donate” button below.

If you’d like to donate a pinball machine to our classroom, let us know!