3D-Printed Candy Dispenser
A candy dispenser powered by rotational motion and built out of PLA and acrylic. I designed all parts from scratch and manufactured them with a 3D-printer and a laser cutter, outsourcing only nuts, bolts, and a spring.
Key Features
Spring returns mechanism back into place
Insert candy into funnel on top
4
Candy is dropped into the pickup zone
3
1
2
Turning the lever drops the candy through a hole
Summary
How might we design a candy dispenser using rotational motion? Using gravity to my advantage, I designed a method that takes a candy as an input, takes a simple user action to rotate the candy to be over a hole, and then drops it into the pickup zone. A spring on the mechanism returns the rotated plate back to its original spot, ready to dispense again.
Time Frame
3 weeks (February 2022)
Team
Ryan Oosting
My Role
Design; Prototyping; Manufacturing; Assembly; Presentation
Methodologies
CAD; 3D-Printing; Laser Cutting
Materials
PLA; Acrylic
Original Sketches
These were some of my early concept sketches that highlighted the general flow of the candy dispenser. These sketches didn’t completely satisfy the requirements so I had to adapt them. Later, I changed the puck-like piece to a crescent shape to accommodate the requirement to use a spring.
Rapid Prototyping
The next stage of the project was actualizing those concept sketches. This was a very important part of the process because I was testing my initial concept sketches and they ended up working which meant I could move forward with the design. Our rapid prototypes were intended to be very lo-fi so we could prioritize multiple prototypes over one detailed model.
CAD Model
I was planning to laser-cut and 3D print my pieces so the CAD was very important. And after multiple rounds of CAD and test cutting/printing, this was my final model.
Exploded View
This is the most important diagram I made during this project as it illustrated the final product with all its components. It is generally good practice making these because the better this diagram is, the fewer problems there will be in the manufacturing process.
Final Product
The final product came out great and I thank my many, many rounds of prototyping that solidified my design. It is fully functional, though, if there was more time I would like to make each piece out of laser cut acrylic and improve the strength of the funnel on top.