Those were the days... those old days... back in the late '90s and early '00s. 3D Pinball for Windows - Space Cadet was a free game, that came with Microsoft OS releases through Windows XP. Space Cadet was actually just one part of the Full Tilt! Pinball software collection sold by Maxis starting in 1995.
A hobbyist called "CNCDan" wants to succeed in creating a physical Space Cadet table. As reported by Ars Technica, this building process faces some real-world problems, like size and positioning of table elements. With 1-metre-tall table, he ended up with a rectangular playfield just 56 cm wide. That is on the smaller side for commercial pinball tables, and maps to playfield bumpers that are just 53 mm wide. This is way smaller than any prebuilt bumpers that are commercially available.
Then there were issues with unreliable plastic microswitches for those tiny bumpers, and a separate problem with the even smaller bumpers on the raised playfield. CNCDan also ended up adding a physical mechanism to simulate the short delay 3D Space Cadet players may remember, when the ball dropped down a hole from the raised playfield back to the flippers below.
CNCDan is currently looking for artists to help him with a hand-drawn re-creation of the original Space Cadet playfield, which he doesn't want to use AI for. Physical Space Cadet table is still far from finished, but CNCDan seems enthusiastic.
<social>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU_02HABZ4s</social>