hey guys!
I'm nate welcome back to the workshop today we're going
to be building our very own gumball machine using easily available parts and materials
Here's what we'll be using to build our gumball machine first we have an angled plastic candy jar we have a piece of?
foam core board that a lot of the internal workings will be built out of a plastic bottle with straight sidewalls
plastic bowl that came in a pack of four for just a couple of bucks some small diameter wooden dowels of course a bunch of
Gumballs the hot glue gun a circle compass and exacto knife and we're gonna be using a drill even though it's not strictly necessary
To start off let's take our
foam core board and start cutting out a few shapes the first thing we'll build is the mechanism that catches the gum ball inside the
container and drops them down into the dispenser here's the basic idea of how this mechanism will work
dowel will go through a hole in our foam core board that will spin around and we'll have a small
cup that can catch our gum ball inside the container then the whole device will be a circle
the gum ball will fall out of the machine down into the circle with the notch cut out and then as we twist it it
will get dropped out of the bottom into the dispensing device
now this is an
extremely rough
Drawing of how this device is going to work but it does work as something of a measurement tool we can see that the gum?
Ball will fit in a slot that size we want to be sure that it's the same
distance on all sides of our axle
So we can take a rough measurement of this circle that i've drawn and we come up with about
two and a quarter inches so that is the size of circle that we will make our mechanism
Since we want our final circle to be two and a quarter inches in diameter we need to set our radius at one and 1/8
inches wide
to make sure that our mechanism is wide enough to hold the gumball well we need to cut out four of these circles
We can see that with four pieces of our foam core it's wider than the gumball so we should be able to
completely contain the gumball inside the mechanism
Like cutting the notch out of one circle and then tracing it on to another we can be relatively certain that we'll get the same
size and shape every time
you
go our gumball fitting nicely inside the notch cut out in our mechanism now let's glue these four pieces together
drill a hole down through the center and we'll use that to attach the axle which will be made from our wooden dowel
as a test fitting let's fit the dowel through the hole that we just carved see how this is looking
that's exactly what we were hoping for right there mechanism will catch the gumball
Rotate and drop it down into the dispenser now you may have noticed that there's an issue with this mechanism if we put it like
this it will catch the gumball and then the gumball will just drop right out
And that's not the goal so let's build a box that fits around this
mechanism so that there are side walls keeping the gumball from falling out until we want it to
we want our box to contain the rotating mechanism
but
We want it to be very close to the edges so let's cut out a square
That's got the same diameter as our circle two and one-quarter inches
we go to squares that fit just about
perfectly around our
interior
mechanism now we just need to add a couple of holes so that our axle can run through the sides of the box as well
See now how the sides of our box are going to contain the gum ball
so it doesn't fall out and tell we're ready for it to now at this point when i turn it it'll just fall out on
The side here because we haven't added the sides to our box yet
now our mechanism isn't
Perfectly round and largely that's because when you cut something out using the exacto knife it's hard to follow the lines just the way you
want sometimes the knife will be at an angle sometimes you'll miss your mark a little bit
To make sure that our wheel isn't going to start rubbing on the sides of the box i'm
Looking at a little bit of a high point here so i'm gonna try and take that down to some sandpaper just
To make sure everything will turn easily once it's all put together
alright i think that did a pretty good job
None of the ridges are standing up as higher than the others at this point so i suspect
That'll help it rotate even more smoothly inside our box
At this point we want to start building our box around this mechanism so let's give ourselves a little bit of
Extra dowel on either side clip it off and then glue the mechanism in place so that it's firmly affixed
To the dowel by applying the glue
To the dowel and then pushing our little mechanism over the glue
hopefully we've smeared glue on the inside in between the dowel and the mechanism so that it will be nice and firmly attached
We're doing that because as i said we're gonna want the mechanism inside to rotate but we don't want the box itself
To rotate with the mechanism firmly attached
To our dowel axle and the sides of the box freely spinning it's now time to add the other sides to our box
measure how wide we want those to be just by putting it down on top of our foam core
drawing where we want to cut it
with our side pieces cut out now let's attach them, to the other sides of our box
there we go now with the sides of our box attached our gum ball doesn't fall out until it gets to the bottom and
we're actually going to take the bottom of our box and add a
Little bit of a lip on either side so that become al doesn't fall out until it's right down in the middle of the bottom
now before
We attach these two pieces which will direct the gum bowl to fall out into the middle we're also going
To add a small piece in either corner to make sure that the gum ball doesn't try and get stuck in this little spot
When it's upside-down
now that we have those two pieces in place
let's attach these two to direct the gum ball to only fall out the very center of the bottom of our mechanism
We've got our mechanism assembled now let's test it out by dropping in a gumball and see if we can get it to drop out
The bottom
go
perfect with our mechanism built we now want to attach it to the bottom of our angled container the first step will be drilling or
cutting a hole in the center of our container
Large enough to fit over the opening of the mechanism but small enough that we're not going to have gumballs is pouring out everywhere
i
was exciting didn't think about the bit getting quite that much grip on the container but it did
we can now see that if we set our mechanism right beneath that hole it should
feed the gumballs pretty well down into it to help make sure that the gumballs really get funneled in
Let's cut down the edges of the sides of the box on the inside just a little bit so that they have a sort of
Downward slope into the candy catching portion to make sure we don't get too many let's raise up the bottom of our mechanism
So it's a little bit closer to the top that way the gumball will sit at the very edge and then the second gumball won't
Be able to fit in let's try that
the bottom of our candy bowl has just a slight
concavity to it so we want to make our mechanism fit flush up against that
So to make it work what we want to do is take down the edges just a little
bit at an angle so that they fit nicely with the shape of our pool
it's like only one at a time fall down into mechanism now that's just one seat
even if there's others on top of it they just get pushed out of the way
Perfect our mechanism is now working nicely with the hole we have in the bottom of our bowl so let's glue it in place
So it's permanently attached
We now have a bowl and we have our dispenser mechanism so we need to attach them
To the tower in the base that will be part of the gumball machine
to start let's cut the top off of this water bottle as flat and level e as we can
To help as a guide i'm gonna wrap some tape around it and if the tape lays
perfectly straight then we should be able to get a nice clean cut
there we go that tape is pretty straight the fact that it met up almost exactly where it started means that it's lying
Pretty much in a straight circle around the bottle it may not be a hundred percent perfect but fortunately it doesn't have to be
now, we can see that the whole mechanism can fit nicely into the bottle but of course the wooden dowel sticking out in the front
In the back is impeding it from fitting inside
so what we want to do is trim off the dowel in the back and then we'll drill a hole into the front of the
Bottle and we'll be able to fit that through the hole and have it sit down inside the bottle entirely
When our candy container is resting on the bottle we can see the height that we're going to need a hole
For our turning mechanism to leave the bottle it's marked out with a pen and then drill out a hole
we're only going to want the mechanism that we turn on the front to be about a
Quarter of an inch away from the bottle so we can trim down this dowel fair bit as well i used some heavy wire cutters
To clip the dowel on the back but i want the dowel to be a little bit smoother in the front so i'm going to
try cutting through it with a hacksaw
there we go with our dowel shortened a little bit hopefully we can now fit the whole mechanism down inside our bog
there we go if you gumball
Should be able to just drop one down hey there it's going
but as you can see we're just dropping gum balls down inside of a sealed container
So what we need to build is a small ramp that we can connect to the mechanism inside out
To the front of the bottle i think this will be too long but let's start out by cutting a piece about four inches long
let's make our ramp wide enough that the gum ball can easily fit even after we've added some walls that will keep it from rolling
Off, to the side?
that should give us a line up ramp for a gumball to roll right out
We also need to have enough space that the gumball can fit out the bottom of the mechanism so we can't have it flat up
Against it of course and even if we angle it there's not
Really enough room for it to get out we need to angle it and
Add a little bit of a spacer so let's add some space onto the back of our ramp
One thing to keep in mind is that we are going to want this ramp at a bit of an angle so if we cut
the bottom of our spacer it should sit at an angle on our ramp
you, can see that i've cut an angle
and when i glue it onto the back of our ramp it won't sit straight up and down at a 90 degree angle
It will sit a bit like that now it is going to attach
To this back portion of our
Mechanism so to just give it a little bit better of a grip let's fill in the gap in between these two pieces
now our ramp will have something nice and solid to attach to
of course we will need a hole cut into our bottle before the gumballs to get out through
we can line our ramp up with our mechanism and see approximately what height you need to cut that hole
This will be the bottom of the hole and then we need to have enough space
for our ramp to pass through and for a gumball to easily fit through
to get a good height for the side walls of our ramp we can line our ramp
along one piece of, foam core and then trace out the shape
Now, we have a piece that fits in nicely but is too tall and would get in the way of the mechanism so we need
to cut off the sidewall at the same height as this backing piece
That's one wall of our ramp now let's do the same thing on the other side
now let's use our glue to attach the two side walls on your ramp
there we go a ramp with walls so the gumball can't fall out and land in the bottom of our container i
think that is looking pretty dang good
This is more ramp than a gumball delivery system really needs so let's trim this off
With our gumball delivery system we also want to make sure that it's easy for us to grab the gumball out
So at the end of our ramp let's lower the wall height a little bit
So it's easier to grab and
Now because we don't necessarily want our gumball just shooting out onto the floor or a desk let's add a front piece onto this to
stop it from rolling when you don't want it to
at this point our ramp is complete and we just need to attach it to our dispensing mechanism
now this might be one of the most delicate
Pieces of this entire build we need to attach the glue onto the ramp and then fit it in through the hole and
press it up against the bottom of the mechanism
And at this point we can also start making our other connections permanent we can use the glue to attach the bottle to our candy
container and run some glue along the outside of the front of the ramp to fold everything rigidly in place
At this point all the moving parts of our gumball machine should be functional so let's pour in some gumballs and give it a test
I wanted to make sure it didn't bounce out it would be super easy to just add a slightly higher wall
But it doesn't bother me now that everything is working at this point there are only two things left
To do one is to cut a hole in the bottom of this bowl so we can fit our
bottle down inside it and the other is to add something that makes it a little bit easier to turn our mechanism i have a
Roll of tape that is almost the exact same diameter as our bottle so i'm going
To use that to trace out a circle onto our bowl and then cut that out
Nice there we go our bottle fits nicely inside of our bowl so let's just use some glue to attach that and make it permanent
we're gonna try and use one of these king of random logos as our turning mechanism
so i've peeled the sticker off and i'm just gonna attach this onto our foam core and i'll cut that out
work
Now let's see if we can get the sticker to peel off
For just a minute so i can drill a hole into the phone cord
we apply our sticker right
Now the glue has set all the way we should be able to twist the internal mechanism by twisting the logo
let's fill er up with gumballs and she'll be ready to go
needs more gumballs
gumball
It's a pretty fun little build and you can probably even get it to work with things other than gumballs
i haven't tried but there may be other small candies which would fit in here nicely as well i think about everything at this build
from walmart and i don't think i spent more than like 12 bucks the only thing i didn't get from walmart was the gumballs
themselves and i got those from my local grocery store where they're sold in bulk
thanks for joining us for this video and don't forget to come gear yourself up with hats shirts and other cool merch at the king
of, random calm see you there
foam core board that will be
when you really really need to go
you