Wooden Gumball Machine*
*As this project was made in my school's woodshop I was unable to document the building process using pictures
May 15th 2013
Wooden Gumball Machine:I designed this project back in November 2012 and built it a couple of months later in woodshop class. Of course, I was unable to take pictures of the project while I was building it (no cameras are permitted in school) but I have carefully photographed and video taped the finished product so that you can see how it works.
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I began with a crude drawing, and pretty much just worked up from there. I only use the plan as idea, changing several things as I built it. For instance, the gumballs wouldn't fall into the hole at the end of the ramp, they would just fly off and roll around everywhere. To fix this problem I added a little piece of wood to stop their descent so that they would fall into the hole at the base of the gumball machine. (See red outline in the picture below)
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How it works:The mechanism is quite simple. Spinning the small gear (with the arrows) turns the big gear. The gaps between the spokes of the big gear grab the gumballs that come down from the glass jar and takes them out over the ramp where they fall out and roll down the ramp into the hole. (See video at top of page for the machine in motion)
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