Oliver Ballard

First we drew a design on a piece of paper, and made a mini version out of cardbard so we would know what it might look like and how it would work.

We measured and cut pieces of wood to the right size. Cutting the wood was messy as there was lots of saw dust. Daddy used an electric saw, it made a loud noise.

We marked out where the screws and holes had to go on the back board using a pencil and ruler. We needed a rubber because we kept making mistakes. This bit took ages! We drew a circle where a hole was going to be cut for coins to fall down, Daddy called it the loser hole.

I helped Daddy drill the big loser hole in the back board whilst Elizabeth used the hoover to suck up the dust.

We put some silver screws where the pencil lines were to make the pins on our backboard. Daddy made a mistake and put some screws in the wrong place, we had to mark out where all the screws went again. We then tested our back board to see if it worked.

Next we measured and cut the pieces for the sides and base.

We attached the side panels to the base using screws and the impact driver. Daddy taught me an impact driver is for putting in screws and a drill is for drilling holes.

We put stars on the back board using a really big sticker.

We painted the machine and decorated it. The decorations were made out of hama beads. After painting, the drawer stopped working because of the paint. Daddy stayed working late in to the night to fix it.

We added lights and sound. Daddy also made a plastic cover, he bent it using a heat gun.

Once it was finished, we put it outside the house for other people to play on. We added sweets for people to win and explained that any money that goes down the loser holes goes to a charirt supporting local hospitals.