Lego Ev3 Slot Machine
Abstract:
Vending machines have come a long way, since their introduction to human society
thousands of years ago. Although the basic concept of a vending machine has not
changed, modern day technology has significantly enhanced them. Our vending machine
is no different. Although our vending machine is not top of the line, it is also not such a
bad one either. We started out with building the five main components of a vending
machine: the dispenser, trough, selection device, and payment reader entirely out of
LEGOs. We decided on a door like dispenser and buttons as a selection device. The
payment we decided to accept were barcodes. The only component that was actually
giving us trouble was the dispenser. Our first dispenser design was severely flawed.
After coming up with a door like mechanism, the dispenser was easily fixed. Although
we did prove our hypothesis to be correct, there are still many improvements that we
could make such as improving the design to make it easier to maintain.
Question:
Is it possible to create an operational candy machine with only LEGOs?
Purpose:
To build a candy machine that is capable of:
· Reading a barcode
· Detecting if it is a fake or not
· Sending a signal to the other RCX to allow to user to:
1) Select the candy
2) While making sure that the machine remains stationary
Background:
The History of Counterfeiting the US Currency
The counterfeiting of money is one of the oldest crimes in history. Therefore I
needed to find out the ways I could use a LEGO RCX to recognize a correct bill
and reject it if it is fake.
The History:
During the American Revolution, the British counterfeited U.S. currency in such
large amounts that the Continental currency soon became worthless. 'Not worth a
Continental' became a popular expression that is still heard today.
During the Civil War, one-third to one-half of the currency in circulation was
counterfeit. At that time, approximately 1,600 state banks designed and printed
their own bills. Each bill carried a different design, making it difficult to detect
counterfeit bills from the 7,000 varieties of real bills.
A national currency was adopted in 1862 to resolve the counterfeiting problem.
However, the national currency was soon counterfeited and circulated so
extensively that it became necessary to take enforcement measures. Therefore, on
July 5, 1865, the United States Secret Service was established to suppress the
wide-spread counterfeiting of this nation's currency.
Although the counterfeiting of money was substantially suppressed after the
establishment of the Secret Service, this crime still represents a potential danger
to the Nation's economy.
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Lego Ev3 Instructions
The new LEGO Mindstorms set, the #31313 LEGO Mindstorms EV3 has been released this month, and some LEGO robotics fans are already playing with it and building awesome robots. We have talked about the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 before so I won’t repeat the details (see: A New Generation of LEGO Mindstorms!), but I wanted to show you a fun machine LEGO fan Jason Allemann built using his LEGO Mindstorms EV3 kit. 🙂
In the following video Jason showcases his custom designedUltimate Machine (also known as Useless Machine) built using one LEGO Mindstorms EV3 kit. He calls it the LuuMa Ev3. The video is titled; Jason vs. The Ultimate LEGO Machine (LuuMa EV3). Check it out!
Really fun, isn’t it? Jason is well known for his mechanical LEGO creations (you can check out his YouTube channel for more videos). He says the following about the LuuMa EV3: “I had a lot of fun with this one, especially programming the various responses. It’s a little bit more elaborate than the traditional Ultimate Machine; featuring 6 different responses for turning the switch off, and 2 evasive maneuvers for trying to prevent the switch from being turned on in the first place. Step by step instructions for building the core (which only uses parts from the #31313 LEGO Mindstorms EV3 kit) can be found on my website, TrueDimensions.com, along with the Mindstorms project file for running the program. I haven’t provided instructions for building the box, as it really is pretty much just a box.”
If you would like to build your own Ultimate Machine from LEGO, or build other LEGO robots, I highly recommend you check out the brand new LEGO Mindstorms EV3. LEGO and robotics is a great combination! See more details at the Online LEGO Shop: LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3
Lego Mindstorms Ev3 Education Download
What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Mindstorms Ultimate Machine Jason built? Have you tried out the LEGO Mindstorms kits? Did you ever built and programmed your own robot? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
Lego Ev3 Programming
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
Lego Ev3 Download
- A New Generation of LEGO Mindstorms! (EV3 details & press-release)