CandyBot: Halloween, the Engineer Way
An Arduino candy dispenser with a 3D-printed Ferris-wheel mechanism, built the night I turned 18. When the motor driver died at 1 AM, I built a new one on a breadboard.
At rest, CandyBot idles with a “Happy Halloween” message on its LCD. When the ultrasonic sensor detects an approaching trick-or-treater, a gearmotor rotates a cylindrical sector an exact number of radians to dump its load of candy.
While one sector dispenses, a tension system between the loading sector and the candy supply bucket keeps the next sector aligned with the supply container, so a sector is always loaded and candy never spills where it shouldn’t. After dispensing, the display switches to a scrolling message: “Thank you! From Paris High School Robotics Club.”
Built in one night
I built this project, all but some of the 3D prints, over the night I turned 18. At 1 AM the L298N motor driver failed, so I built a replacement on a breadboard and had the machine running by morning. The messy breadboard in the photos is that driver. I refused to give up.
