nostalgia | Pinventions

Very cool that my custom “10th Avenue Freeze Out” machine has been picked up by numerous Springsteen sites, including backstreets.com, an official online Springsteen fan magazine.
Lots of fans from Italy and the U.K. as well seem to be drooling over the design. It is still my favorite of my creations, mostly because of the cool turntable/roulette wheel feature and sound clip sound track.

The play field artwork took months to get right- I wanted to tell the story of the song from the top on down to the bottom- with the top highlighting the NYC skyline in the rain (teardrops in the city)- the middle showing a street scene of gathering youth, a tenement building, a radio playing- and the lower section highlighting piano keys, music, the 45 record, and silhouettes of the “little pretties” raising their hands.

As a fan creating this work for my own pleasure, it became an homage to the Boss and the Band circa 1975. Up until recently, I hadn’t really shared the images of the work to sites where other fans might enjoy it. Previously, it was displayed at a local RI Maker Faire and on a few pinball sites, but the response was nothing like it has been recently ever since “Backstreets” made my playfield their Facebook wallpaper.

So thanks to the best fans in the world- fans of Bruce- for getting me some exposure. It makes the 6 months of work it took to build it worthwhile!

So many of you have made statements like “I want one!”, “Where can I get one?”, “Is this real?”, “Is it for sale?”, etc. This is all very flattering. So there is good news and bad news related to these questions- first, the bad news- this unit is my prototype, and it is not for sale.

However- the very good news is that I have a very similar donor machine (with the same roulette wheel feature) that I can customize for someone using the same artwork (slightly altered to fit this machine). The price can run anywhere from a few thousand dollars to much more than that depending on how much additional customization you may want… If you are serious about wanting one, we can make that happen- and it will be a lot less expensive than any other custom machines since I’d be reusing artwork I already have!

So write to me at:
davegaskill@pinventions.com

I also have an active Facebook account for Pinventions as well- currently under my name (David Gaskill). If you want to keep up with my Pinventions work, send a friend request and like the site. Or call me at 401-212-7500.

So to my new Springsteen fan friends- thanks for the supportive, encouraging comments! and feel free to write, comment or call. I will reply in person to anyone taking the time to contact me.

Dave

The last few months have been frantic. Work duties during the week, and weekends spent “cramming for finals” with my Engineering Senior Design Team at Roger Williams University.

Well the finals are done, the Team has graduated and moved on, and I have been teaching myself new programming languages so I can build a custom fog/light/sound/special FX control unit for my machine.

As of today, the machine is symbolic of its own state- a zombie mechanism capable of limited movement and grunting- but lacking a connected “brain” to make it all work correctly as envisioned.

So to the world of breadboards, Arduinos, LEDs and servos I have journeyed.

I emerge from the other side of this jungle jumble of thought wires with clarity- it almost all makes sense now. I have a complex web of my lessons connected, buzzing, glowing, and moving on my actual (not virtual) desktop. The design all works now- lights flash multiple colors, moans and screams happen electronically as I direct them to- as opposed to haunting my dreams. Fog generators glow when expected as I touch trigger wires.

I now must transform this rats nest of success into the limited space of my zombie machine to make it come alive.

I now look forward to days of soldering and cursing my iron scorched fingers.

The sprint is now to get it all together and functioning in time for the planned “big reveal” in New York City- at the World Maker Faire in September- if they accept my application. If so, my work gets an audience of 100,000+ people.

As part of my application, last night I put together a crude video of the transformation of this custom machine. The story, as is the machine, remains unfinished- a stumbling, bumbling zombie still searching for brains.

The video so far can be seen here: