Star Wars Force Activated Death Star Candy Dispenser

This instructable was created in fulfillment of the project requirement of the Makecourse at the University of South Florida (www.makecourse.com).

Welcome to my Force Activated Candy Dispenser project! This device takes a coin input and with a wave of your hand you use the force to fire off the Death Star and dispense candy.

Access to 3D printer is required for this project.

-Arduino Uno

-Silver and Gray PLA filament ~1/2-1 kg of each

-4 green LEDs

-Utrasonic sensor

-Servo (SG90)

-Wires & jumper wires

-Small breadboard

-Adafruit IR break beam sensor

-Green Clear Translucent Fluorescent Acrylic Plexiglass Lucite Rods, 0.25in diameter.

-Velcro tape

-M&M or any other desired candy within a similar size constraint

-Drill with quarter inch bit

Start by slicing the STLs provided. I prefer Cura but each 3D printer may have its own slicing software. This project is split into 8 STLs as follows:

I recommend using light tree branch supports for the "BodyCorrected", "Actuator", and "Door Correct" parts.

The schematic above is the wiring layout for the project and attached is the Arduino code. The code begins idle as the IR beam sensors look for a coin input. After it detects a coin in, the ultrasonic sensor waits until it detects a Jedi who uses the force (waving a hand across the sensor) to begin the death star LED sequence. Following the LED sequence the servo rotates to allow some candy to pass by and then rotates back.

After verifying that the electronics are functioning properly, drill quarter inch holes in the Death Star dish to mount the LED and lucite rods. Cut the lucite rods into 3 smaller lengths and 1 longer length. I would just eyeball this to preference. When mounting the rods and LEDs if they feel loose, optionally use adhesive to fix them in place I used hot glue. Then solder wire to the ends of the LEDs in the dish and feed them through another hole drilled in the top of the main body.

After the Death Star Assembly is complete, mount your servo motor in the slot on the back interior wall with the actuator piece mounted to the top of the servo motor. Use the dual-flanged attachment the comes with the servo to mount this. The result should resemble the second figure. Next Add the ultrasonic sensor through the two holes in the front of the main body.

Lastly, insert the IR beam sensors to the inside of the door in the two slots and add velcro tape to the two corners.

That will complete the build and you will have an awesome force activated Death Star candy machine!