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Has anyone made their own crane game?
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vrf:
I'd say the hardest part would be getting the prize to slip out of the claw's grasp just before it made it to the drop bin.   ;D
RickDIII:
Ok, I'm gonna go way out here, but here's an idea I've been thinking about and this seems like a good opportunity to get laughed at.

Here's my lame idea:
When I was a kid, one of the favorite toys I never got (cousins had it) was the armatron by Radio Shack.  This toy was cool - anybody remember it?  It was a robot arm powered by a couple of joysticks.  You could manipulate the arm to pick up little pieces and stack them etc.  Maybe it is just because I always wanted one, but I was thinking this would be a great variant on the candy crane games.  Armatrons are available on ebay for $20-40.  If you hacked one and put the robot arm in a case with a chute, moved the controls to outside the cabinet, and then put a power switch on a coin activated timer you could fill the machine with candy.

I think it would be fun to play...what do you think?  Shoot holes in my theory here...
Anybody seen an item like this before?

The part that I do not know how to do is build the circuit switch that based on a coin drop started power to the device for x seconds...but it seems like this might not be very complicated for someone experienced in this type of component design.

Anyway...laugh away...tell me how lame I am...tell me I need to grow up...or provide feedback.  It's up to you.  
spystyle:
Groovy
Steve B.:

--- Quote from: RickDIII on June 08, 2006, 09:44:32 am ---I think it would be fun to play...what do you think?  Shoot holes in my theory here...
Anybody seen an item like this before?

--- End quote ---

The Armatron was definitely a cool robotic arm. Believe it or not, the whole thing operated with just one motor. The two joysticks on the base were not electronic but mechanical. When you pushed a joystick, you actually engaged a series of gears which made the various joints move. A friend of mine took his Armatron and made it computer controlled by following an article in Radio Electronics. Each joystick was surrounded by 4 solenoids which were controlled by the computer. By activating the solenoids, the mechanical joysticks would get pushed around and would control the Armatron. It was fun to watch.

Good luck with your project. I'd love to see it happen.

-Steve
RandyT:
The Armatron concept would be much more fun to use than the current sleazy claw mechanisms.  I'd probably put money in one that was well built (but then again, I'm a hopeless claw machine addict)

You would probably need more intelligence in the electronics than a simple timer though.  It would be important to have the arm return to a home position and "drop" just like the claws do.  Otherwise, the next person would be using valuable seconds to get where they want to be, and it might deter them from playing if that place was on the other side of the machine from where the last person left it.

All in all, I like the idea :)

RandyT
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