Pick and place robot

[guen_max]

Anyone here tried playing with that arcade game...you know where you have to pick stuff toys inside...but u only have 2 buttons to push and guide the mechanism inside and do linear movements (finally the gripper will try to get the toy & drop it to the hole...but to our dismay simply can't )...well for our final project we were tasked to improve that thing...in other words a pick and place robot?

Basically it's all prismatic...what i don't get is how can we attach the gripper and make all the 3 fingers grip? or is it better to have 4?

 

[dknguyen]

I think 3 fingers is fine and easier to work with to. Maybe improve the finger shape? Maybe don't even use a "claw" type hand.

 

[OutToLunch]

Can you really improve one of those games? I mean, if you make the hand pick things up better, then the advantage goes to the player! That's not really the point of it - the point is to soak the player for all the quarters they're willing to pump into it before giving up. The claw needs to be just good enough to lift the prize up just a little and then let it slip out - just enough to tease.

 

[House0Fwax]

If you are planning on making one, how about examining existing 3 pronged / jawed gripping things, such as drill and lathe chucks, or indeed a 'pearl catch'.
In all my years of trying, I have never won anything out of thoes machines. Nowadays I notice that you can buy your own ( smaller ) one to get frustrated at home with.

 

[theinfamousbob]

I've seen these on TV, they're rigged so they only pay out every so many plays.

 

[Matilda]

I used one of these in a Vegas hotel...
I came close to winning a few times, but always lost

It's a scam.
The soft furry toy always slipped out of the smooth chrome hands of the claw.

When no one was playing with the machine, it periodically went in some random blitz program. Lights would flash, the arm would move around and the claw would open and close.
Here is what really gets me!!!
During the "blitz" play, the claw would close tight! But when I was using the machine, the "grip" button only closed the claw about half way!

It has to be a scam....in a sort of legal way right?
If all the toys were won on each try, then the machine would take forever to pay for it's manufactured cost. The coins collected wouldn't cover the prizes in the glass case right.

And Hey! It was Vegas!

 

[guen_max]

The goal of this project is to make that scam into a better one that the players would want it to be (so we don't need to tease..hehe)..where of course you can actually pick the toy...Yeah 3 fingers is what we have in mind...if not the claw type then what would be the better option?...We can just make the fingers shorter and the tip wider to accomodate the small toys right?

 

[guen_max]

thanks guys...please bear with the girl who has so many questions... wishing happy holidays to all of us!