DIY Air Hockey Table with LCD Scoreboard

When you were a kid — and perhaps much longer — you probably enjoyed playing air hockey. This nominally two-player game lets players bump a small puck into the opposite player’s goal, riding on a cushion of air. Normally these games are found in arcades and similar locations, but if you want to have your own personal air hockey setup, be sure to check out this build by Technovation — AKA Kousheek Chakraborty and Satya Schiavina.

What they came up with uses a blower attachment to a vacuum cleaner for air flow, doing away with one of the major challenges of such a setup. In their build, air is simply piped into the miniature table, then pushed out through a grid of small holes laser-cut into an acrylic sheet that forms the playfield. The structure itself is made out of ‘traditionally’ cut wood, along with other components that are either laser cut or 3D-printed as needed.

To make the board stand out a bit more, they embedded LED strips in the sides of the playfield, and also added a custom scorekeeping device on the side. Each player’s score increases when a button is pushed, allowing it to show who is winning on a small LCD display. The resulting game can be seen in the video below, and its clean construction is a real testament to Technovation’s skills with a variety of different construction techniques!