Beat boredom with an Alexa-controlled, face-tracking candy launcher
Arduino Team — May 14th, 2020
As many of us are stuck at home these days due to COVID-19, Harrison McIntyre decided to do something fun and “make it rain candy.”
What he came up with was a build that uses a flywheel to launch M&M’s — speed regulated using magnets and a Hall effect sensor, and aimed with a few servos to control pitch and yaw. This allows it to fire in rapid succession, at an initial velocity of 23 miles per hour.
The device is powered by a pair of Arduino Nano boards along with a Raspberry Pi and USB camera. How it works is as follows: a Python script takes an image, runs facial detection, rotates the turret to point towards a face, does facial landmark detection to find the mouth, calculates the correct parabola, and finally tosses the candy. It’s even paired up with an Amazon Echo Dot that lets McIntyre simply ask for treats via Alexa commands!
We care about the privacy and personal data of our users.
To continue, please give us your consent:
Please confirm that you have read the privacy policy
Thank you for subscribing!
Curious to learn more?
Are you also a teacher, student, or professional that loves using Arduino in your day-to-day activities?
Then keep up-to-date with either our STEM or Professional monthly newsletters.
Arduino weekly newsletter (already subscribed)
Educators can benefit from the ever growing tech that shapes our environment through fun cool projects.
Why not awe your boss with highly innovative ways to help keep your enterprise connected at no extra cost?
Arduino Survey
We'd like to get to know you little better.
Please help us improve by answering this super short optional survey.
