www.montereycountyweekly.com april 25-may 1, 2024 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 without a left arm who can only activate the right flipper on the machine, it presents a dilemma. Brammer recalls being a child and sneaking off to the bowling alley to play pinball. “Back then there were no video games, per se,” he says. “I liked the lights, the sounds and mechanical aspects. I was like a kid in a candy store.” After graduating from college, Brammer began a career working on airplanes in Texas. Years later, he broke his left arm in a workplace accident. It was then doctors discovered that he had bone cancer in his arm. Following surgeries and chemotherapy, his arm continued to get worse. Fifteen years ago, he had enough. “I told them to snip it off, I’m done,” Brammer says. Now living in California with his wife, Brammer says he was faced with two options: either sit on the couch, watching TV and feeling sorry for himself, or do something. He chose the latter, and ended up running a successful landscaping irrigation business which he is now retired from. But through this time, Brammer says he was frustrated because he couldn’t play pinball. The light bulb moment happened when he came across a machine that had an extra button on one side to activate a magnet. The solution had been staring him in the face: just add another button on the right to activate the left flipper. Brammer grabbed a drill and took it to his beloved “Road Kings” machine, creating a hole so he could wire a button for the right flipper. Despite the confusion at first from his brain (the right flipper is activated by the top button using the index finger, the left on the bottom with the right middle finger), he eventually mastered it. He was now back in the pinball game, literally and figuratively. It was a perfect solution for his home games. But what about heading out to the arcade to play with friends? Brammer couldn’t exactly bring his drill and start ripping up someone else’s machines. A decade ago, Monterey resident Cary Carmichael put out a call on social media, looking for local pinball players to form a new league. The group was small, meeting frequently at Angelina’s Pizza in Salinas for a few rounds. Carmichael says he first met Brammer when he and Kim were hovering over a machine, with Kim playing the left flipper while Brammer took the right. League members chatted with the Brammers about a mechanical solution for Todd, something that he could take with him to any machine he wished to play. Carmichael posted about it on the online Pinside forums, seeking suggestions. The discussion eventually caught the attention of Ben Heckendorn, an engineer who, among other things, modifies video game controllers to adapt to those with disabilities. Heckendorn came up with 3D printed clamps that connect to the sides of the machine. By pressing a button on one side, it activates a servo—a motor-driven mechanism—that taps the flipper button on the other side. It worked, but had its limitations. Mainly, it had a bit of a lag, making it difficult to catch a ball with a flipper in a split-second. It also attached to the machine with suction cups, which were hard to put on and frequently fell off. More possibilities were discussed and prototypes were created. Now, Brammer plays with an updated version of Heckendorn’s creation designed by Fred Hamilton, which does away with the suction cups and instead clamps on by the weight of the batteries. This kind of troubleshooting is not atypical for the pinball community. People are here to play a game and have fun, many of them intensely—but even among competitors, there is a desire to help each other and solve problems. That is true at Lynn’s Arcade in Seaside, where Brammer is a regular. The place quickly became the hub for all things pinball in Monterey County. In the early 2010s, Cary and Nikki Carmichael moved to Monterey, and immediately set up a 2002 Playboy pinball machine in their kitchen. By lucky chance, they learned that Facing page: Kwang Chong plays an intense game as he tries to make it to the championship round during a league night at Lynn’s Arcade in Seaside. Top right: Todd Brammer works on a pair of custom-designed pinball machines named after his grandsons at his Salinas home. Immediately below: Brammer wired an extra button on the right side of many of his personal machines so he is able to play with one hand. Bottom right: Cary Carmichael is one of the owners of Lynn’s Arcade.
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