Bumpers

Round, mushroom-shaped playfield devices that register a hit when the ball collides with them. Bumpers first appeared in the 1930s and quickly became a defining element of pinball, second only to Flippers in shaping how the game plays and sounds. They fall into two broad categories: active bumpers such as Pop Bumpers, which fire a solenoid to kick the ball away on contact, and Passive Bumpers, which register the hit and award points but do not propel the ball. Clustered together in a bumper field, they create the chaotic, rapid-fire ricochets that give pinball much of its kinetic energy.