M&M Despenser - 2022 OHTS Tech Challenge

Every year Oxford Hills Technical School has there annual Tech Challenge where every tech program holds a competition for its students to test their abilities and learnings competition against their classmates. The 2022 season for Pre-Engineering’s challenge was to create an M&M dispenser that was both consistent and documented with a user manual and diagrams for each part. This competition would take place from the end of December to mid-January for Pre-Engineering.

There were very few restrictions beyond these so I want for an automated approach using Arduino and servos. My design was a clear reservoir to fill with M&Ms that would convert into four separate channels. These channels had a slot that an M&M could fall through into a slider that was connected to a servo. The slider was just used to direct the M&M’s around a bar that would stop all the M&Ms from falling to a large funnel underneath all the reservoir channels. The funnel was then connected to an output tube and tried where four M&Ms would be dispensed.

A few of my challenges were the actuation of the slider and to avoid jamming the system. To actuate the slide a pin and slot design was used for moving the slider side to side from a rotating servo. This servo was then run by an Arduino Uno. To avoid jamming in the instruction manual I made it so that when the slot activated to accept the M&Ms there was a time delay to shake the dispenser to alline all the candies into the slots. Then the slider would pull them around the blocking bar. This was indicated with a shake LED. there was also a safety measure put in so that if the slider james on a misaligned M&M the servo would turn off instead of torquing the slider.

I had 27 parts in my device and 18 of them had drawings made with dimensions and visuals for reproduction. My presentation was viewed by my class and the OHTS director and resulted in my receiving first place gold. I have a few changes I would like to make at one point including a better anti-jamming solution. My impressions left on the department resulted in being asked to be a judge for the 2023 season the next year.