Editing Pinball (section)

=== Kickers and slingshots ===
[[File:Pinball Slingshot - The Machine.JPG|thumb|upright|Slingshots have rubber bands around them. Switches behind the rubber detect the ball's impact and a solenoid-driven lever kicks it away.]]

''Kickers'' and ''slingshots'' are rubber pads that propel the ball away upon impact, like bumpers, but are usually a horizontal side of a wall. Every recent pinball machine includes slingshots to the upper left and upper right of the lowest set of flippers{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}}; older games used more experimental arrangements. They operate similarly to pop bumpers, with a switch on each side of a solenoid-operated lever arm in a typical arrangement. The switches are closed by ball contact with the rubber on the kicker's face, which activates the solenoid.

Early pinball machines typically had full solenoid current passing through trigger switches for all types of solenoids, from kickers to pop bumpers to the flippers themselves. This caused arcing across switch contacts and rapid contact fouling and failure. As electronics were gradually implemented in pinball design, solenoids began to be switched by power transistors under software control to lower switch voltage and current, vastly extend switch service lifetime, and add flexibility to game design.

The smaller, lower-powered solenoids were first to be transistorized, followed later by the higher-current solenoids as the price, performance, and reliability of power transistors improved over the years.