Was doing some reading on claw machines and their mechanisms, and discovered that probably the first historical example of this machine was called the Erie Digger and was all mechanical, no electricity required. Here is I think one of that original design in action:
I believe this shows the same type of machine but also the mechanism and the controller being operated:
And this looks like a closeup of the mechanism:
Not sure how easy all of that would be to pull off in wood at the scale I can do it, but some useful references here no doubt for down the road when I get to that.
Shorter term, I will definitely try to do a variation of Yowawerts on Youtube’s cardboard claw hand:
And possibly their all cardboard complete claw machine:
From the video description:
You don’t need to use any complex materials such as syringes, motors, wires, programs, or other hard-to-find objects because for this homemade machine, you will only need cardboard, strings / yarn, skewers / BBQ sticks, cutting tools like scissors & cutter, sticking materials like glue and glue gun…
I’m learning to love barbecue skewers too.
Tim B.
wtf from the wikipedia this is insane:
“The number of claw machine arcades in Taiwan increased from 920 in 2016 to 3,353 in 2018 and, as of 2019, there are more than 10,000.[25] A 2018 survey of children aged seven to 18 reported 32.7 percent of them using claw machines one to three days a week and over four percent using them every day.[26]”