Everyone is familiar with claw machines. The chances are good you don’t really have a nice experience with them. How many times did you play one of those just to fail to catch anything? It was frustrating when you were a child and it’s frustrating now. But how could you beat this machine? In fact, what if you could make one of those machines yourself? You won’t be infuriated by not catching anything and it can be a fun group activity. The good news is that you won’t need a lot of money to make that happen. What you will need are time and childish enthusiasm and ambition.
As we all know, when playing claw machines, it’s not as easy as putting 50 cents inside, grabbing the one specific toy you want and going home excited. Most of the time, you will just end up losing your 50 cents. So, the machines are, as you already know, rigged. The only way to win almost every time is to build one yourself. That’s why we’re giving you this list of tips on how to make your machine so that you can win every time.
Preparations
First, you need to check what you have from the necessary material and go shopping. In case you have all the necessary tools, buying everything else you need won’t be too expensive. What you’ll need are some wood panels, cables, a joystick and buttons, and some relays. You’ll need wood panels to make a housing for your machine and joystick and buttons in order to control the movement of the claw. According to various DIY sources, you can use a PCB (Printed Circuit Board), a currency detector, and a three-fingered claw for your machine. However, the number of fingers can vary from machine to machine.
Img source: dribbble.com
Building
Prior to starting any cutting and drilling, you need to measure. Define how big the machine will be and what dimensions and shapes of the wooden panels you need. Once you have everything defined and sketched, start by cutting your wooden panels. Your machine has four sides, so you need to cut the panels for all four sides. What you also need, is a piece of the machine where the coins fall in. Of course, you can design your machine to work without coins if you wish. The relay, the joystick, and the buttons are all necessary in order to be able to move the claw. If you want your machine to work on coins, you can design it so that once the coin is inserted, a timer starts, and the joystick is unlocked. You can always add some colors, glass panes, and LED lights if you wish to make your claw machine even more entertaining.
When the gantry assembly is concerned, you can buy it online. Building one by yourself will be time-consuming and complicated.
You can also decide to make the strength of the claw grip adjustable by the player. The game is much more fun when there is only time to worry about, instead of getting angry every time your claw drops the toy you managed to catch!
