Third-graders from Brooklyn’s P.S.145 take a field trip to Modern Pinball NYC, where they learn math and science
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ENLARGE
If you’ve ever been a third-grader, you’d probably agree there’s no better place to further your education than a pinball parlor.
That undoubtedly accounted for the unrepressed anticipation displayed by the students at P.S. 145 in Brooklyn as they marched off their school bus and into Modern Pinball NYC in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood one brisk morning.
“This is listening time,” one teacher informed the awed third-graders, who desired nothing more at that moment than to be let loose on the emporium’s two-dozen machines. “Full body listening.”
Steve Zahler, who owns the arcade with Steve Epstein, addressed the children.
“There are over 2 miles of wire, 2,000 parts in each pinball machine,” he said. “If something goes wrong, it would take a long time to fix.”
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ENLARGEThe ostensible purpose of the field trip was to teach science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, through the mysteries of pinball.
“I’m going to tell you a lot of stuff about electricity and magnetism,” explained Steven P. Marsh, a pinball aficionado, patent attorney and former Navy research scientist who leads the classes.
It’s a tribute to Modern Pinball NYC and the fine teachers at P.S. 145 that they didn’t rush into the educational component of the morning too quickly. “After you play for a while, we’re going to see some of the stuff in these pinball machines,” added Dr. Marsh, who holds a doctorate.
With that encouragement, most of us headed to our favorite machines.
I include myself because, while I’m all for preparing our children for the challenges of the future, my main purpose in covering the field trip was to have an excuse to play pinball.
I’d also like to add that no child was denied the opportunity to participate just because I was hogging the classic 1978 machine dedicated to the hard rock band “Kiss.”
Modern Pinball NYC had much newer games to choose from, among them “Black Knight,” which had a disobedient habit of muttering, in a Darth Vader-like growl, “Black Knight will play you,” seemingly whenever the children’s chaperones called for silence.
I was hoping for a lesson from Mr. Zahler, who told me he’s ranked 21st in the world among pinball players. He taught me about catching and cradling the ball with one of the flippers, so you could aim better before you released it. But I already knew that.
Also, as soon as I was behind the pinball launcher, I had no interest in instruction. That’s the thing about pinball. It instantly monopolizes all your senses. It ought to be a controlled substance.
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ENLARGEThough the children, to their infinite credit, obeyed when the time came to report to the multipurpose room behind the arcade, where Dr. Marsh described and displayed a pinball machine’s component parts.
“These are what we call drop targets,” he said as he held aloft a metal-and-plastic contraption. “Each target has a spring behind it. When you hit it, it goes down.”
Paying impressively close attention was a young man, and possible future Silicon Valley mogul, named Joseph Cajamarca. “Does the WWE have that?” he demanded. Joseph was referring to his favorite pinball machine, “WrestleMania.” The winner gets crowned world heavyweight champ.
Dr. Marsh went on a bit longer, discussing things such as how springs gain their elasticity from the arrangement of molecules. And while it was all fascinating stuff, what seemed to secure the children’s cooperation was a poorly disguised bribe.
“If you pay really good attention to Dr. Marsh,” one teacher had promised at the start of the talk, “when you guys go back in there you’re going to know what you’re looking at and going to have more fun.”
But how much more fun can a kid possibly have?
“Go ahead and play the games now,” Mr. Zahler shouted, acknowledging the inevitable.
With that, the students dispersed like the projectiles on 1995’s “Apollo 13,” a pinball machine Dr. Marsh had mentioned in his lecture, though it isn’t included in Modern Pinball NYC’s arsenal.
“That has 13 balls at once,” he explained.
“Wow!” Joseph had reacted, even though on WrestleMania a mere four balls can be played simultaneously.
—ralph.gardner@wsj.com