The Story
The Smart Snack Machine had always been an idea that was in the back of my head, but it wasn't
until I was introduced to the Hack Club Winter Hardware Wonderland program that I realized that
I could make this dream a reality. After creating a proposal and budget I presented my idea to
the Hack Club team and received the portion of the funds needed to create the project. After
about a year of working, a lot of failure and experimentation, I am very proud to share the
Smart Snack Machine. It features a variety of ways to "pay" for a snack, including a mobile pay
option where users make an account with the app on their phones, a coin acceptor, and my
favorite feature, games! Users can play games on the integrated touch screen to earn a snack.
How I Made It
The machine is made of wood, and plexiglass, as well as barn wire that was wrapped up to make
the coils. The coils are run by an array of 14 servo motors that are controlled by 2 NodeMCU
boards. These boards are connected to WiFi to receive signals from the Raspberry Pi computer
that is attached to the touch screen. An interesting aspect of controlling the servos over WiFi
is that in the future I can create an app that allows users to order from their phone, from
anywhere in the world. (If they want to "gift" a snack to someone...) The coin acceptor is run
by an Arduino Leonardo that is directly connected to the Raspberry Pi. Finally a QR code
scanning camera was added to be able to scan the user's "Mobile Wallet Key" if they choose to
pay with credits that are in the Snack Machine App.
Screenshots of UI
