Money Sorter

Money is great when you know exactly how much you have. Notes are easier to count but money is a different story. This instructable will show you how to make a simple money sorter from just cardboard and some coffee stirrers! This craft works best when the coins you are going to sort through vary more in size. The UK 1 penny and 20 pence for example are literally so close in size it is very hard to get them to fall into the right holes in the money sorter. If you persevere though you will be able to make the coins go where you want them to.

• cardboard
• pencil
• ruler
• craft knife
• coffee stirers
• hot glue

The first thing we have to do is make an area we can put the money in to start the process. The shape above with cardboard edges is the area where I will put my money. The shape will be on a tilt and the edges going inwards will direct the money to where it needs to go. I have also made a rectangle that will link on to the end of it.

Take some cardboard and cut out a rectangle. If you have lots of coin types the rectangle will need to be longer. Glue three strips of cardboard on it, two at the sides and one in the middle. Make sure that the largest coins of each group can slide down the sections.

Now you need to devide your money ( one of every type of coin in your currency) into two groups according to its size. Line up the money from smallest to largest and then split the line in half. In our currency, if you put the money in size order, the size difference between the 2 pence and the 1 pound is the greatest and it is about halfway in the sequence of money. You then need to take the largest coin of the small group and the largest of the big group. Draw around them on the rectangular cardboard piece and cut them out.

Order the coins in both groups from smallest to largest making sure to still keep the groups seperate. Put the coins from each group into the two seperate sections of the cardboard piece in size order. Make sure to exclude the largest coin from each group. Trace around the coins and cut the shapes out. Check the coins will fit through the gaps. Glue a coffee stirrer to the side of the cardboard on both sides so it looks like the structure above. Make sure to glue the coffee stirrers to the cardboard so that the smaller holes are higher from the ground.

Now cut a long rectangle out of cardboard and put two shorter rectangles of cardboard on it like the above picture. This will be where the largest coin from each group will end up.

Glue the Cardboard structure we made before to the base.

Place a long rectangle of cardboard so it is directly under the middle piece of cardboard on the tilted part of the structure. Glue it in.

Take smaller rectangles and place them so that when a coin falls through a hole, it will land in its own box . It should look something like the picture above.

Now add a small piece of carboard to the side of the structure. I cut my piece off the back of the base as it was too long.

Stick coffee stirrers to both sides of the structure we made at the start. You can see I stuck the rectangular peice so that the smaller hole comes first and the larger one comes after. This is crucial.

Add some edges to the rectangular part and also a part to stop the coins falling off the end of the rectangle ( not that they will.)

Now you need to glue the structure to the base so it looks like this. I added a support made from a coffee stirrer to the right side of the model to keep the structure stable.

Add a small rectangle at the front of the structure in the area where the largest coins will end up.